Kanchanpur Districtकञ्चनपुर जिल्ला

Kanchanpur is Nepal's southwesternmost district, 1,610 km² of Tarai plain and Chure foothill (176 m to 1,528 m) wedged between the Mahakali river and India. Its signature is Shuklaphanta National Park: 305 km² of sal forest, wetland and the largest patch of continuous grassland in Nepal — the 16 km² Shukla Phanta itself — established as a hunting and wildlife reserve in the 1970s and upgraded to national park status in 2017, with a 243.5 km² buffer zone. The park protects the largest known population of swamp deer (barasingha) in the world, counted at 2,301 in the official 2014 census, alongside tigers, wild elephants and more than 420 bird species on the old floodplain of the Mahakali.

The district grew from 451,248 people in 2011 to 513,757 in 2021 (+1.25% a year), and its literacy rate of 79.6% is the highest in Sudurpashchim Province. Kanchanpur's society was remade by planned resettlement after malaria eradication in the 1960s: hill-origin Chhetris (30.9%) and Bahuns (16.2%) now form the largest groups, while the indigenous Tharu — including the distinct Rana Tharu community — make up about a quarter of the population. Nepali (43.6%), Tharu (14.2%) and Doteli (12.8%) lead its languages, and rice farming on the fertile plain anchors the economy alongside border trade.

The headquarters Mahendranagar, Nepal's westernmost town of any size, was laid out in the resettlement era and named after King Mahendra; after the republic the municipality was renamed Bhimdatta, honouring Bhimdatta Panta, the far west's peasant-revolt leader killed in 1953. Across the Mahakali, the Dodhara–Chandani area — the only piece of Nepal lying west of the river — is reached by a roughly 1.45 km multi-span suspension footbridge, one of the longest of its kind in the country. The 1860 treaty that returned this 'Naya Muluk' strip to Nepal after the Indian Mutiny still defines the district's outline.