Dhanusha Districtधनुषा जिल्ला

Dhanusha covers 1,180 km² of the Outer Tarai and is Madhesh Province's most populous district (867,747 at the 2021 census) as well as its densest, at 735 persons per km². Its headquarters Janakpurdham — a sub-metropolitan city of 18 local levels' worth of administrative gravity — doubles as the capital of Madhesh Province. The district name appears as "Dhanusa" in NSO and UN tables; it is the same district, and either spelling traces to the dhanusha (bow) of Shiva that, in the Ramayana tradition, Rama broke at King Janak's court to win Sita's hand.

This is the heartland of Maithili culture in Nepal: 80.4 percent of residents speak Maithili as their mother tongue, and Janakpur's Janaki Mandir — the marble-and-plaster temple complex marking Sita's legendary birthplace in Janak's ancient Mithila — is the country's most important Rama–Sita pilgrimage site, drawing huge crowds from both Nepal and India. The economy rests on rice and wheat farming across the alluvial plain, with remittances from workers abroad making up a large share of household income; the 2011–21 growth rate of 1.34 percent a year was among the faster in the province, while literacy (65.2 percent of those aged 5+) remains far below the national average.

Dhanusha is also the home of Nepal's only operating railway. The historic narrow-gauge line from Jaynagar in Bihar to Janakpur was rebuilt to broad gauge as the 69-km Jaynagar–Janakpur–Bardibas project with Rs10 billion in Indian assistance; cross-border passenger service on the 35-km Jaynagar–Janakpur–Kurtha section was flagged off in April 2022, and trains were extended to Bijalpura in July 2023, with a final push toward Bardibas planned. The railway, the airport at Janakpur and the annual festival calendar centred on the Janaki Mandir make Dhanusha the cultural and connective hub of the eastern Tarai.