Kalikot Districtकालिकोट जिल्ला

Kalikot sits astride the Karnali river in the middle of the province, 1,741 km² of some of Nepal's most vertical inhabited terrain: 39.4% of its area is temperate and another 37.3% subalpine, with farm terraces stacked above gorges. The Pachal waterfall at Jite Gadhi — namesake of Pachaljharana Rural Municipality — is the district's best-known natural landmark. Nine local levels (three municipalities and six rural municipalities) administer the district from the headquarters Manma, in Khandachakra Municipality.

Kalikot's modern story is inseparable from the Karnali Highway. The 232 km road from Surkhet to Jumla — begun in 1992, opened by the Nepali Army in 2007 — threads through Kalikot past Manma and is the backbone supplying Kalikot, Jumla, Mugu and Humla. It is also notorious: a single five-metre lane last fully blacktopped in 2012, with around 90% of the surface since peeled away and repeated landslide cuts; traffic police count 209 deaths on it since 2007, earning it the nickname 'death trap'. Every monsoon the district's connection to the rest of Nepal hangs on this one fragile alignment.

The 2021 census counted 145,292 people, up 0.57% a year. The population is about 98% Khas — Chhetri 29.6%, Thakuri 24.5% and Kami 18.7% — and 99.8% Hindu; while 73% report Nepali as their first language, about 26% speak the distinct Khas dialect of the Karnali basin, one of the language's most archaic living forms. Literacy is 72.7%. Subsistence farming on scarce arable land keeps Kalikot among Nepal's most food-insecure districts, and seasonal labour migration to India remains a mainstay of household income.