Manang Districtमनाङ जिल्ला

Manang is the upper valley of the Marsyangdi, a trans-Himalayan basin of 2,246 km² walled off from the monsoon by the Annapurna massif — it records the lowest rainfall of any Nepali district, and over a quarter of its area lies above 5,000 m. The Thorong La pass (5,416 m), the highest point of the Annapurna Circuit, connects it to Mustang, and Tilicho Lake (about 4,919 m), one of the highest lakes of its size in the world, sits in a moraine amphitheatre above Khangsar. The district headquarters Chame, at around 2,700 m in the pine forests of the lower valley, is among the smallest district capitals in Nepal.

With just 5,658 people at the 2021 census — down from 6,538 in 2011 — Manang is the least populous of Nepal's 77 districts, at a density of 3 people per km², and it also posts the country's most extreme sex ratio: 129.44 males per 100 females, a signature of the seasonal male workforce drawn in by tourism, trade and construction. Gurung people make up roughly 46% of the population and Buddhism is the majority religion; the Manangi villages of the upper valley — Pisang, Braga, Manang — are famous for their stone-built houses, gompas and a long tradition of long-distance trade. The restricted Nar–Phu valley (Narpa Bhumi Rural Municipality) shelters two of Nepal's most isolated Tibetan-speaking villages.

The entire district lies within the Annapurna Conservation Area (7,629 km², Nepal's largest protected area), and lodge tourism along the Annapurna Circuit is the backbone of the cash economy, supplemented by yak and goat herding, buckwheat and barley fields and apple orchards. A motorable road now reaches up the valley, and the district has entered the hydropower era: the 135 MW Manang–Marsyangdi project at Chame began construction in late 2024, the first of a planned cascade on the upper Marsyangdi.