Nepal (pronounced /neˈpɑːl/ nə-, /-pɔːl/ -; Nepali: नेपाल [neˈpaːl] ), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia and, as of 2010, the world's most recent nation to become a republic. It is bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India. With an area of 147,181 square kilometres (56,827 sq mi) and a population of approximately 30 million, Nepal is the world's 93rd largest country by land mass and the 41st most populous country. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolitan city.

Nepal is a country of highly diverse and rich geography, culture, and religions. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten highest mountains, including the highest, Sagarmatha, known in English as Mount Everest. The fertile and humid south is heavily urbanized. It contains over 240 peaks more than 20,000 ft (6,096 metres) above sea level.

Durbar Square is the plaza opposite the old royal palace in the three main cities in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal: Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. The square is filled with temples.

A hand (med./lat.: manus, pl. manūs) is a prehensile, multi-fingered body part normally located at the end of an arm or forelimb of a primate.

Hands are the chief organs for physically manipulating the environment, used for both gross motor skills (such as grasping a large object) and fine motor skills (such as picking up a small pebble). The fingertips contain some of the densest areas of nerve endings on the body, are the richest source of tactile feedback, and have the greatest positioning capability of the body; thus the sense of touch is intimately associated with hands. Like other paired organs (eyes, ears, legs), each hand is dominantly controlled by the opposing brain hemisphere, and thus handedness, or preferred hand choice for single-handed activities such as writing with a pen, reflects a significant individual trait.

Some evolutionary anatomists use hand to refer more generally to the appendage of digits on the forelimb, for example, in the context of whether the three digits of the bird hand involved the same homologous loss of two digits as in the dinosaur hand.

Kathmandu (Nepali: काठमांडौ, pronounced: [kɑːʈʰ.mɑːɳ.ɖuː]; Nepal Bhasa: येँ महानगरपालिका) is the capital and largest metropolitan city of Nepal. The city is the urban core of the Kathmandu Valley in the Himalayas, which also contains two sister cities namely Patan or Lalitpur, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to its southeast (an ancient city of fine arts and crafts) and Bhaktapur, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) to its east (city of devotees). It is also acronymed as 'KTM' and named 'tri-city'.

The city stands at an elevation of approximately 1,400 metres (4,600 ft) in the bowl-shaped valley in central Nepal surrounded by four major mountains, namely: Shivapuri, Phulchowki, Nagarjun and Chandragiri. It is inhabited by 671,846 (2001) people. The Kathmandu valley with its three districts including Kathmandu district accounts for a population density of only 97 per km² whereas Kathmandu metropolitan city has a density of 13,225 per km². It is by far the largest urban agglomerate in Nepal, accounting for 20% of the urban population in an area of 5,067 hectares (12,520 acres) (50.67 square kilometres (19.56 sq mi)).

Kathmandu is not only the capital of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal but also the headquarters of the Central Region (Madhyamanchal) among the five development regions constituted by the 14 administrative zones of Nepal located at the central part of the country. The Central region has three zones namely, Bagmati, Narayani and Janakpur. Kathmandu is located in the Bagmati Zone.

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.6% of the earth's total surface area (or 29.9% of its land area) and with approximately 4 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population.

Asia is traditionally defined as part of the landmass of Eurasia — with the western portion of the latter occupied by Europe — located to the east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma-Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Given its size and diversity, Asia — a toponym dating back to classical antiquity — is more a cultural concept incorporating a number of regions and peoples than a homogeneous physical entity (see Subregions of Asia, Asian people).

In geography, a country is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a sovereign state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region. Usually, but not always, a country coincides with a sovereign territory and is associated with a state, nation or government.

In common usage, the term country is used in the sense of both nations and states, with definitions varying. In some cases it is used to refer both to states and to other political entities, while in some occasions it refers only to states It is not uncommon for general information or statistical publications to adopt the wider definition for purposes such as illustration and comparison.

Some cohesive geographical entities, which were formerly sovereign states, are commonly regarded and referred to still as countries; such as England, Scotland and Wales – in the United Kingdom. Historically, the countries of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were others. Former states such as Bavaria (now part of Germany) and Piedmont (now part of Italy) would not normally be referred to as "countries" in contemporary English. The degree of autonomy of non-state countries varies widely. Some are possessions of states, as several states have overseas dependencies (such as the British Virgin Islands, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and American Samoa), with territory and citizenry distinct from their own. Such dependent territories are sometimes listed together with independent states on lists of countries, and may be treated as a "country of origin" in international trade, as Hong Kong is. Some countries are divided among several states, such as Korea and Kurdistan.

Perched on the southern slopes of the mighty Himalayas, Nepal is an ethnically diverse, culturally rich and geographically varied country with some of the world's highest mountain peaks that blend beautifully with terraced hills, broad valleys and large terrains of fertile plains. Nepal is unique in that in a small land size of only around 147,000 square kilometres (56,000 square miles), its varied landscape ranges from the highest point on earth to flat plains close to sea level, interspersed with thousands of rivers, lakes, dense forests and a rich assemblage of exotic wildlife.

Nepalis are descendants of migrants from parts of earlier Greater Nepal, Tibet, India and parts of Burma and Yunnan along with native tribal population. Among the earliest inhabitants were the Kirat of east mid-region, Newar of the Kathmandu Valley and aboriginal Tharu in the malarial southern Terai region. The ancestors of the Khas (Bahun, Chhetri, Thakuri, Sanyasi, Dalit) migrated eastward along the himalayan foothills out of Kashmir, Kumaon, Garhwal-- parts of then Greater Nepal, Karnali Pradesh (Nepal) and perhaps also north from the Gangeatic Plains during invasions. Other ethnic groups trace their origins to North Burma, Yunnan and Tibet, e.g. the Gurung and Magar in the west, Rai and Limbu in the east, and Sherpa and Bhotia in the north.

Childhood (being a child) is a broad term usually applied to the phase of development in humans between infancy and adulthood. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood (learning to walk), early childhood (play age), middle childhood (school age), and adolescence (post-puberty).

Most commonly, the term kanyādān is used to describe the most highly valued form of Hindu marriage. More specifically, kanyādān is a certain Hindu wedding ritual and means “gift of a virgin” or “gift of a maiden” There are, however, different interpretations and practices across South Asia.