Jumla Districtजुम्ला जिल्ला

Jumla spreads over 2,531 km² of high valleys between 915 m and 4,679 m, drained by the Tila, Hima and Jawa rivers. The headquarters Jumla Khalanga, in Chandannath Municipality, is the upper terminus of the 232 km Karnali Highway from Surkhet, the lifeline road open since 2007. Jumla's eight local levels comprise one municipality and seven rural municipalities, among them Sinja, whose valley carries an outsized place in Nepali history.

Sinja was the capital of the Khasa (Western Malla) empire that dominated the Karnali region and beyond from the 12th to 14th centuries, and the Nepali language traces its origin to this valley — the earliest Proto-Nepali and Devanagari inscriptions occur around Sinja and Dullu. The valley's palace and temple remains, with an elaborate network of underground earthen water pipes, were placed on UNESCO's World Heritage tentative list in 2008 (criteria ii and iii). After the empire fragmented, the Kingdom of Jumla led the Baise Rajya, the 22 principalities of the Karnali basin, until annexation into unified Nepal in 1789.

Modern Jumla, home to 118,349 people in 2021 (about 60% Chhetri, sex ratio almost exactly 100, literacy 70.2%), has built its economy around what grows at altitude. The district was declared an organic district in 2009, the year its apples earned Nepal's organic certificate; by 2018 it was selling Rs180 million of apples a year from roughly 6,000 tonnes produced, with better roads letting the fruit reach Kathmandu and Pokhara in time instead of rotting unsold. Its other signature crop is Jumli Marsi, a red rice variety cultivated here for an estimated 1,300 years at elevations few rice strains can survive. The flame of the Chandannath temple in Khalanga is, by tradition, relit from the natural eternal flames of Dailekh's Panchakoshi when it goes out.