Solukhumbu Districtसोलुखुम्बु जिल्ला

Solukhumbu is the district of Mount Everest. Its 3,312 km² climb from about 600 m in the southern valleys to the 8,848.86 m summit of Sagarmatha, which stands inside Sagarmatha National Park — established on 19 July 1976 across 1,148 km² of the district's north and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. The district divides into two distinct worlds: the high Khumbu of glaciers and 8,000 m peaks, and the gentler mid-hill Solu, where the headquarters Salleri (in Solududhkunda Municipality) sits — a long way from the trekking trailheads.

Tourism built on mountaineering and trekking dominates the economy. The airstrip at Lukla funnels climbers and trekkers toward Namche Bazaar, the Sherpa market capital, and Tengboche monastery on the route to Everest Base Camp; the rural municipality that contains Everest is named Khumbu Pasanglhamu, after the first Nepali woman to summit the mountain. The district's mountaineering lineage runs from Tenzing Norgay to record-holding guides like Kami Rita Sherpa.

A demographic surprise: district-wide, Rai people (32.8%) considerably outnumber the famous Sherpa (17.1%), who concentrate in the high Khumbu — the Solu hills are Rai and Chhetri country. With 104,851 people in 2021 (density just 32/km², the lowest in the province), Solukhumbu's population was essentially unchanged over the decade, and like the other high-mountain districts of the east it counts slightly more men than women (sex ratio 101.23).