Parsa Districtपर्सा जिल्ला

Parsa is the westernmost district of Madhesh Province, spreading 1,353 km² from the sal-forested Churia slopes in the north to the open border plain in the south. Its headquarters Birgunj — Madhesh's only metropolitan city — faces Raxaul in India's Bihar and is Nepal's single most important trade gateway: the Sirsiya (Birgunj) Dry Port, operating since 2004 on a direct broad-gauge link to the Indian railway network and the seaports of Kolkata, Haldia and Visakhapatnam, is the country's first and busiest inland port, now being expanded with World Bank support. The Birgunj–Pathlaiya corridor that runs north from the city is one of Nepal's heaviest concentrations of industry.

The 2021 census counted 654,471 people at 484 per km² — the lowest density in Madhesh, because the district's northern third is nearly empty forest. That forest is Parsa National Park: gazetted as a wildlife reserve in 1984 and upgraded to national park status with an area of 627.39 km² (plus a 285.3 km² buffer zone declared in 2005), it protects sal forest contiguous with Chitwan National Park and shelters tigers, leopards, gaur and one of Nepal's resident wild elephant populations. Parsa's sex ratio of 106.99 males per 100 females is the highest of any Tarai district — only trans-Himalayan Manang and Mustang record more-male populations — reflecting the male workforce drawn to Birgunj's factories, transport yards and customs economy.

Bhojpuri is the mother tongue of 84.7 percent of the district — the highest Bhojpuri share in Nepal — with Nepali (4.8 percent), Tharu (3.8 percent) and Urdu (2.1 percent) far behind; about 17 percent of the population is Muslim. Parsa's literacy rate of 69.1 percent (aged 5+) is the highest among the eight Madhesh districts, though still below the national average. The district's 14 local levels pair the Birgunj metropolis and three municipalities along the border and highway belt with ten rural municipalities, including remote Thori in the far northwest on the Chitwan border.