Pyuthan Districtप्युठान जिल्ला

Pyuthan is a mid-hill district of 1,309 km² rising from the crest of the Mahabharat Range on the Dang border to ridges above 3,000 m toward Rolpa and Baglung, with the fertile Jhimruk Khola valley as its core and the Madi Khola crossing its north. The 2021 census counted 232,019 people, barely changed from 228,102 in 2011 (+0.16% per year). One statistic makes Pyuthan a national reference point: its sex ratio of 81.43 males per 100 females is the lowest of Nepal's 77 districts — nearly one working-age man in five is absent, mostly in Indian and Gulf labour markets, a pattern shared with neighbouring Gulmi and Arghakhanchi.

Magars (33.7%) are the largest community, followed by Chhetris (25.6%) and Kamis (13.7%), with Nepali spoken by 95% of residents. The economy rests on irrigated rice in the Jhimruk valley, maize and millet terraces above it, livestock and remittances; the headquarters is the ridge-top bazaar of Khalanga in Pyuthan Municipality, overlooking the valley.

The district's fame rests on Swargadwari — "the gateway to heaven" — a hilltop temple-ashram complex at about 2,300 m in the district's south, founded around the perpetual sacrificial fire lit in 1895 by the ascetic Narayan Gautam, revered as Swargadwari Mahaprabhu. With its Vedic school, its herds of several hundred cows and the belief that the Pandavas of the Mahabharata ascended to heaven from here, the shrine draws more than half a million pilgrims a year, many from across the Indian border, and gives its name to the district's second municipality.