Bajura Districtबाजुरा जिल्ला

Bajura covers 2,188 km² of the upper far-western hills, climbing from river valleys near 300 m to peaks above 6,000 m where the district reaches toward the Saipal range. The Budhiganga river is its central artery, and the district's southwestern corner lies inside Khaptad National Park. The headquarters Martadi, seat of Badimalika Municipality, is one of the most remote district capitals in Nepal — the district's name is practically a byword for inaccessibility in Nepali public debate, and most households face food deficits for part of the year despite more than 80% of the population working in agriculture and livestock.

Unusually for a far-western hill district, Bajura's population grew between censuses, from 134,912 in 2011 to 138,523 in 2021 (+0.25% a year), and its sex ratio of 93.87 is markedly less skewed than Achham's or Doti's. Chhetris are the largest group at 59.5%, followed by Kami (16.2%); about a third of residents speak Bajureli as their first language alongside Nepali, and literacy stands at 71.2%.

Bajura's defining landmark is the Badimalika temple, a high-meadow shrine to the goddess Malika that draws thousands of pilgrims over the Janai Purnima full moon; the Triveni river confluence below it and the lake of Budhinanda are tied into the same pilgrimage circuit, and three of the district's four municipalities (Badimalika, Triveni, Budhinanda) take their names from these sites. Among its five rural municipalities, Jagannath was first constituted in 2017 as Pandav Gupha and later renamed, and Khaptad Chhededaha carries the national park into its title — small signs of how the 2017 federal restructuring rebranded this old hinterland.