Morang Districtमोरङ जिल्ला

Morang is the demographic and industrial heavyweight of eastern Nepal: 1,148,156 people at the 2021 census make it the country's third most populous district after Kathmandu and Rupandehi. About four-fifths of its 1,855 km² lies below 300 m on the Tarai plain, given over to rice and jute, with belts of sal forest along the northern foothills. Its seventeen local levels — the most of any Koshi district — include Biratnagar Metropolitan City, the capital of Koshi Province and Nepal's sixth-largest city (244,750 in 2021).

Biratnagar is where industrial Nepal began. Biratnagar Jute Mills was the country's first large-scale industry, and the city still anchors one of Nepal's largest manufacturing corridors, stretching from the Rani mills area toward Duhabi in neighbouring Sunsari. The mills also made political history: the 1947 workers' strike at the jute mills, led by B.P. Koirala and Girija Prasad Koirala — both future prime ministers — was the first organised anti-Rana movement and helped spark the nationwide agitation that ended Rana rule in 1951.

The census counts Morang as the most ethnically diverse district in Nepal, with 119 castes and ethnicities recorded — Chhetri (13.2%) and Bahun (12.3%) are the largest groups, with Tharu the biggest Tarai Janajati community — and its population continues to grow strongly (+1.66% a year) as the hills empty into the plains.