Baglung Districtबागलुङ जिल्ला

Baglung occupies 1,784 km² of rugged hill country on the west bank of the Kali Gandaki, climbing from about 650 m at Kharbang to roughly 4,300 m around the Dhorpatan valley. The district headquarters, Baglung Bazar, sits on a plateau directly above the Kali Gandaki gorge, and the deeply incised tributary valleys — the Kathekhola, Badigad and Nisi — explain the district's popular nickname: with scores of footbridges strung across its canyons, Baglung is known across Nepal as the 'district of suspension bridges'. The Mid-Hill (Pushpalal) Highway and the Pokhara–Baglung road have made the bazaar, long the administrative centre of the former Dhaulagiri Zone, the main market town between Pokhara and Nepal's western hills.

The 2021 census counted 249,211 people, down from 268,613 in 2011 (−0.72% a year) — part of the broad depopulation of Nepal's hill districts. The sex ratio of 87.35 males per 100 females is among the country's lower figures and reflects heavy male out-migration for foreign employment and army service; Magar communities form the largest population group, alongside Brahmin, Chhetri and Dalit communities. Literacy stands at 80.0%, a little above the national 76.2%. The economy rests on terraced agriculture, remittances and small trade, with an older tradition of slate quarrying and small-scale iron and copper working; the Kalika Bhagwati temple in Baglung Bazar draws pilgrims from across the region.

Baglung's far north-west holds most of the Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve, Nepal's only hunting reserve — 1,325 km² across Baglung, Myagdi and Rukum East, established in 1987, where licensed trophy hunting of blue sheep (naur) and Himalayan tahr is managed by quota in seven hunting blocks while snow leopard, red panda and musk deer are fully protected. The high Dhorpatan valley, now seat of Dhorpatan Municipality, is one of the few flat alpine valleys in the country and a stronghold of Magar and Tibetan-origin herding communities.