Parbat Districtपर्वत जिल्ला

Parbat, at 494 km², is the fourth-smallest of Nepal's 77 districts — the smallest outside the Kathmandu Valley — a compact block of mid-hill ridges wedged between the deep canyons of the Kali Gandaki on its western edge and the Modi Khola flowing off the Annapurnas in the east. Most of the district lies in the subtropical and temperate belts between 1,000 m and 2,000 m, terraced for rice, maize and citrus, and its north-eastern corner rises toward the forested Panchase ridge shared with Kaski and Syangja. The headquarters Kusma stands on a plateau high above the Kali Gandaki–Modi confluence.

That canyon-top setting has turned Kusma into Nepal's adventure-bridge capital. The Kushma–Balewa footbridge across the Kali Gandaki gorge — about 567 m long, described by the Nepal Tourism Board as the longest suspension footbridge in Nepal — is one of a cluster of high crossings around the town, and from a purpose-built bridge nearby 'The Cliff' operates what NTB bills as the world's second-highest bungee jump, plunging toward the river. Rafting on the Kali Gandaki, the Gupteshwar cave sacred to Shiva that draws Shivaratri pilgrims, and the Modi valley trails toward the Annapurna foothills round out a fast-growing tourism circuit an hour's drive from Pokhara.

The 2021 census counted 130,887 people, down sharply from 146,590 in 2011 — at −1.09% a year the second-fastest decline in Gandaki Province, with a sex ratio of 89.12 marking the same out-migration economy as its neighbours. Literacy is 80.1%. Historically another of the Chaubisi principalities, Parbat today lives on agriculture, remittances and small hydropower on the Modi Khola, with its administrative life split between Kusma and the market towns of Phalewas and the Bihadi valley.