Dang Districtदाङ जिल्ला

Dang — officially Dang Deukhuri — is the largest district of Lumbini Province at 2,955 km², built around two broad Inner Tarai (dun) valleys: the Dang valley under the Mahabharat range, drained by the Babai, and the lower Deukhuri valley along the Rapti river, which carries the East–West Highway. The 2021 census counted 674,993 people, up from 552,583 in 2011 — growth of 1.92% per year that has made it one of the country's fastest-expanding hill-to-Tarai settlement frontiers.

The valleys are the homeland of the Dangaura Tharu, and Tharus (26.4%) remain effectively level with Chhetris (26.6%) as the district's largest community, with Tharu the first language of about a quarter of residents. The twin cities dominate the economy: the headquarters Ghorahi — Nepal's most populous sub-metropolitan city, with 200,530 people in 2021 — and Tulsipur (179,755), a transport hub linked south to the highway and north toward Salyan and Rolpa, sit 15 km apart in the Dang valley, surrounded by rice, maize and mustard farmland.

In October 2020 the provincial assembly voted to move Lumbini Province's capital from Butwal to the Deukhuri valley, and the chief minister's office shifted there in December 2022, putting Dang at the political centre of the province while purpose-built government quarters rise on the valley floor. The district's older landmarks are religious: the Ambikeshwari temple in Ghorahi and the Ratnanath temple at Chaughera, seat of a centuries-old monastery of the Nath yogi tradition that once held sway over the Dang valley.