Humla Districtहुम्ला जिल्ला

Humla occupies Nepal's far northwestern corner, wedged against the Tibetan border along the upper Karnali river. At 5,655 km² it is the country's second-largest district, and overwhelmingly high country: 58.7% of its area lies between 4,000 and 5,000 m and another 10.7% above 5,000 m. The headquarters Simikot, at about 2,900 m, is the highest district capital in Nepal, and the district's seven local levels are all rural municipalities — Humla is the only Karnali district with no urban municipality at all.

For decades Humla was the only district headquarters with no road link to the national network; everything not grown locally arrived by air. That changed only in July 2025, when a Bailey bridge over the Karnali at Chuwakhola in Kharpunath Rural Municipality finally connected Simikot's road to the rest of the country, the last piece of a track the Nepali Army blasted through 130 km of cliffs along the Karnali Corridor (Hilsa–Simikot and south toward Kalikot), which is now being bridged and blacktopped. Geography still points Humla north as much as south: the Tibetan market town of Taklakot (Purang) lies just 35 km beyond the Hilsa border crossing, and Simikot's airstrip funnels thousands of Indian pilgrims a year — around 10,000 after the 2015 earthquake closed the Kodari route — toward Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar via the 4,530 m Nara La.

The 2021 census counted 55,394 people: Chhetri 36.6%, Thakuri 18.4%, Kami 10.0% and Bhote 8.4%, with Khas communities in the south and middle valleys and culturally Tibetan, Buddhist communities in the high north. The Limi Valley — a five-day walk from Simikot — preserves some of Nepal's most isolated villages, including Halji with its roughly thousand-year-old monastery at 3,660 m, and trades seasonally with Tibet over the Lapcha pass. Humla's literacy rate of 63.8% is the lowest in Nepal outside Madhesh Province, and the district's wildlife made news when wild yak, thought regionally extinct, were rediscovered here in 2014.