Dailekh District


Dailekh District a part of Karnali Pradesh, is one of the 77 districts of Nepal. The district, with Dailekh as its district headquarters, covers an area of and had a population of 225,201 in 2001 and 261,770 in 2011.

Etymology

It is said that the name Dailekh is derived from Dadhi Lekh. Dadhi stands for Dadhichi. Dadhichi was a sage in ancient time and Lekh mean hill. Etymologically ‘Dadhi Lekh’ means the hill where sage Dadhichi meditated. There is also another story about name that, in ancient time it was a place of Devatas, so it called "Daibalok" which later became 'Dailekh'.

History

Dailekh District was a part of Khasa kingdom during 12th to 14th century. Sinja Valley was the ancient capital city and powerful town of the Khasa Kingdom After the fall down of the Khasa Kingdom it divided into many small kingdoms. Before the unification of modern Nepal, the area of the Karnali region had a united kingdom named Baise Rajya. Dailekh principality was one in twenty two principalities.

Geography and climate

Dailekh is a high, hilly district out of ten districts of Karnali Province. It is situated at coordinates of 28° 35' 00" N to 29° 08' 00" N Latitudes and 81° 25' 00" E to 81° 53' 00" E of Longitudes. The lowest elevation is 544m and the highest elevation is 4,168m. The headquarter is situated at an elevation of 1448m. The district has covered 80% of mid-hill land and 21% of high-hill land. The total area of the district is.
On the basis of altitude,this district can be classified into 4 different sub-categories:
Climate ZoneElevation Range% of Area
Upper Tropical300 to 1,000 meters
1,000 to 3,300 ft.		16.7%
Subtropical1,000 to 2,000 meters
3,300 to 6,600 ft.		64.5%
Temperate2,000 to 3,000 meters
6,400 to 9,800 ft.		16.1%
Subalpine3,000 to 5,500 meters
9,800 to 18,044 ft.		 2.4%

Transportation

is connected with Birendranagar with a road called Dailekh road. Dailekh road meets to Ratna Highway at Birendranagar. Ratna Highway is connected with Mahendra Highway at Kohalpur. Through Mahendra Highway one can get access to Kathmandu, Pokhara and other cities of Nepal.
There is another road connecting Dailekh to Karnali Highway via Dullu.
The national capital Kathmandu is at distance of from Dailekh.
The nearest airport for Dailekh is Surkhet Airport which is about at distance from Dailekh.

Demographics

At the time of the 2011 Nepal census, Dailekh District had a population of 261,770. Of these, 97.9% spoke Nepali and 1.5% Magar as their first language.

Constituency

Dailekh comprises 2 parliamentary seats and 4 provincial seats:
ConstituencyAreaSeatMP/MLAParty
Dailekh 1ParliamentaryRabindra Raj SharmaNepal Communist Party
Dailekh 2ParliamentaryRaj Bahadur Buda ChhetriNepal Communist Party
Dailekh 1ProvincialDharma Raj RegmiNepal Communist Party
Dailekh 1ProvincialAmar Bahadur ThapaNepal Communist Party
Dailekh 2ProvincialSushil Kumar ThapaNepal Communist Party
Dailekh 2ProvincialRaj Bahadur ShahiNepal Communist Party

Divisions of Dailekh

As per the new constitution of Nepal 2015, the district is divided into 4 urban municipalities and 7 rural municipality;
#MunicipalityTypeAreaPopulationWebsite
1NarayanUrban110.6327,037
2DulluUrban156.7741,540
3AathbisUrban16829,227
4Chamunda BindrasainiUrban90.626,149
5ThantikandhRural88.2218,896
6BhairabiRural110.4621,233
7MahabuRural110.819,277
8NaumuleRural228.5920,802
9DungeshwarRural105.1915,883
10GuransRural164.7922,033
11BhagawatimaiRural151.5218,778
DailekhDistrict1505260,855

Former VDCs">Village development committee (Nepal)">VDCs and Municipalities