Bhaktapur Districtभक्तपुर जिल्ला

Bhaktapur occupies the eastern part of the Kathmandu Valley and, at just 119 km², is the smallest of Nepal's 77 districts. It is also the most extreme demographic outlier outside Kathmandu itself: the 2021 census counted 432,132 people, up from 304,651 in 2011 — an annual growth rate of 3.35%, the fastest of any district in Nepal — and a density of 3,631 persons per km², exceeded only by Kathmandu district. Its four local levels (Bhaktapur, Changunarayan, Madhyapur Thimi and Suryabinayak municipalities) are all urban, making it one of only two districts in the country, with Kathmandu, that has no rural municipality at all.

The district is the historic heartland of Newar civilisation. Newars remain the largest community (35.6% in 2021), and Nepal Bhasha is still spoken by roughly a third of residents alongside Nepali. The old farming villages of the eastern valley have rapidly suburbanised as Kathmandu's population spills eastward along the Araniko Highway, but agriculture, traditional crafts such as pottery and woodcarving, and heritage tourism remain visible parts of the economy. At 88.0%, Bhaktapur's literacy rate is among the highest in Nepal, just behind Kathmandu and Lalitpur.

Bhaktapur city — capital of one of the three Malla kingdoms of the valley until the Gorkhali conquest of 1769 — preserves the most intact medieval townscape in Nepal. Its brick-paved core around Bhaktapur Durbar Square, with the 55-Window Palace and the five-tiered Nyatapola pagoda, and the hilltop temple of Changu Narayan, one of the valley's oldest sacred sites, are two of the seven monument zones of the Kathmandu Valley UNESCO World Heritage property inscribed in 1979. The district also takes in Nagarkot, the valley-rim hill town famous for sunrise Himalayan panoramas, and hosts the annual Bisket Jatra chariot festival at Nepali New Year.