Ilam Districtइलाम जिल्ला

Ilam drapes across the Mahabharat range in Nepal's far southeast, its ridges rising to 3,636 m toward Sandakpur on the Indian border. Among its landmarks is Mai Pokhari, a sacred lake and 90-hectare wetland at about 2,100 m that was designated a Ramsar site in October 2008. The district's ten local levels — four municipalities and six rural municipalities — include Suryodaya and Ilam municipalities, whose hillsides hold the country's most photographed tea gardens.

Tea defines Ilam. The Ilam Tea Estate was planted around 1863, within a decade of neighbouring Darjeeling's first gardens, making this the birthplace of Nepali tea. Today the district's high-grown orthodox leaf is exported to Europe, Australia and the United States, and tea shares the slopes with a famous portfolio of cash crops — large cardamom, ginger, potatoes and amriso (broom grass) — plus a strong dairy economy whose hardened chhurpi cheese has found international markets.

Rai (20.8%) and Limbu (16.1%) communities are the largest groups in this old Kirat homeland, and prosperity from cash crops shows in the social statistics: Ilam's literacy rate of 83.4% is the highest of Koshi Province's fourteen districts. The population, 279,534 in 2021, is drifting down only slowly (−0.36% a year) by hill-district standards.