Loksewa GK Question Bank by Topic — Nepal Samanya Gyan, Cited Facts

Nepal's Public Service Commission (Lok Sewa Aayog) tests general knowledge — samanya gyan — across a predictable set of areas: the country's population and society, national symbols and identity, the constitution and the structure of the state, physical geography, the economy and infrastructure, and Nepal's place in the world. Searches such as 'loksewa gk', 'loksewa important questions' and 'nepal gk questions' return endless lists, but many recycle out-of-date numbers or invent answers. This page does the opposite: it compiles the most-asked facts by topic, states each with its date or fiscal year, and links every claim to the fuller, cited dataset it is drawn from.

Treat each section below as a topic-wise fact bank rather than a mock test. The figures come from first-party sources — the National Statistics Office (formerly the Central Bureau of Statistics), the promulgated Constitution of Nepal, the Public Service Commission, the SAARC Secretariat and the Department of Foreign Employment. Where a statistic is periodic, it is dated so you can quote it correctly and update it when a new release lands.

The National Population and Housing Census 2021 (census day 25 November 2021; final results released 24 March 2023) is the single richest source of Loksewa GK questions. Nepal's total population is 29,164,578 — 14,911,027 female (51.02%) and 14,253,551 male (48.98%), with 2,928 people recorded under 'other gender' for the first time. The 2011–2021 annual growth rate is 0.92%, the lowest in roughly eighty years, and the sex ratio is 95.59 males per 100 females. Literacy for those aged five and above is 76.3% (male 83.6%, female 69.4%). There are 6,666,937 households at an average size of 4.37 persons. The full series and its caveats are compiled on Amarnepal's census page (/people/census).

The society questions turn on composition. The census enumerates 142 caste and ethnic groups — the largest is Chhetri at 16.45% (4,796,995 people), followed by Hill Brahman (11.29%), Magar (6.9%), Tharu (6.2%) and Tamang (5.62%). It records 124 mother tongues across five language families; Nepali, the official language, is the mother tongue of 44.86% (13,084,457 people), ahead of Maithili (11.05%) and Bhojpuri (6.24%). Ten religions are recorded: Hindu 81.19%, Buddhist 8.21%, Islam 5.09%, Kirat 3.17% and Christian 1.76% lead the list. These breakdowns are detailed on the people page (/people) and its ethnic-group and language sub-pages.

Geography-of-population questions cover the seven provinces. Madhesh is the most populous (6,126,288 people, 21.0% of the national total) and the densest (636 per km²); Bagmati is a close second (6,084,042); Karnali has the fewest people (1,694,889) and the lowest density (61 per km²). Roughly 2,190,592 Nepalis — 7.5% of the population — were counted as absentees living abroad, a fact that reappears in the foreign-employment topic below and explains the female-majority resident population.

Symbol questions are near-guaranteed in any Loksewa GK set, and the answers are stable. Under the framework carried into the republican era, Nepal's national animal is the cow, the national bird is the Danphe (the Himalayan monal, Lophophorus impejanus), and the national flower is the rhododendron (lali gurans, Rhododendron arboreum). The national colour is crimson red (simrik), the dominant field colour of the flag.

The flag itself is a favourite question: Nepal's is the only non-quadrilateral national flag in the world, formed of two stacked pennants (a 'double-pennon') and taller than it is wide. The current flag was adopted on 16 December 1962. The crimson field stands for bravery and the rhododendron, and the blue border for peace; the flag carries a stylised moon in the upper pennant and a sun in the lower.

The national anthem, 'Sayaun Thunga Phulka' (Hundreds of Flowers), was officially adopted on 3 August 2007. Its lyrics were written by the poet Byakul Maila — chosen from 1,272 submissions — and the music was composed by Amber Gurung. The anthem celebrates Nepal's sovereignty, unity and its cultural and natural diversity, replacing the older monarchy-era anthem after the movement of 2006.

The Constitution of Nepal was promulgated on 20 September 2015 (3 Ashwin 2072 BS) by the second Constituent Assembly, making it the country's seventh constitution and the first written by an elected assembly. It defines Nepal as a federal democratic republic — the monarchy having been abolished by the Constituent Assembly on 28 May 2008 — and organises the state into three tiers: federal, provincial and local. The federal structure is a standard exam item: 7 provinces, 77 districts and 753 local levels, the latter comprising 6 metropolitan cities, 11 sub-metropolitan cities, 276 municipalities and 460 rural municipalities.

The constitution establishes thirteen independent constitutional bodies (commissions) to safeguard governance, oversight and inclusion. Candidates are regularly asked to name them or to identify the appointing and oversight arrangements. The Public Service Commission (Lok Sewa Aayog) — the very body that conducts the Loksewa examinations — is itself a constitutional body under Part 23 (Articles 242–244), headed by a chairperson and other members appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Constitutional Council. The commission was first established on Ashadh 1, 2008 BS (15 June 1951), soon after the fall of the Rana regime.

For revision, the thirteen constitutional bodies are listed below. A related high-frequency question concerns the Attorney General, which is a constitutional office (Part 20) — the chief legal adviser to the government — rather than one of the thirteen commissions, a distinction examiners like to probe.

Physical-geography questions are a Loksewa staple. Nepal's highest point, and the world's, is Sagarmatha (Mount Everest, Qomolangma in Tibet), whose height was jointly revised by Nepal and China to 8,848.86 metres and announced on 8 December 2020 — the first survey Nepal conducted itself. Eight of the world's fourteen peaks above 8,000 metres lie wholly or partly within Nepal, including Kanchenjunga (8,586 m, the world's third-highest). The full set of eight-thousanders, with first-ascent history, is catalogued on the peaks page (/peaks).

The country spans three ecological belts running east to west — the Terai plains in the south, the Pahad (hill) belt in the middle, and the Himal (mountain) belt in the north — a division that structures climate, agriculture and settlement. Nepal covers roughly 147,516 km² and stretches from lowland Terai near 60 metres above sea level to the summit of Everest. The longest river flowing through Nepal is the Karnali (about 507 km), one of the three great river systems along with the Koshi (Nepal's largest by drainage) and the Gandaki (Narayani); the district and river inventories are on the districts (/districts) and rivers (/rivers) pages.

Administrative geography overlaps with the polity topic: 77 districts grouped under 7 provinces, with the largest province by area (Karnali) being the least populous and the Kathmandu Valley the most crowded. Knowing which districts are largest, highest and least dense — Manang and Mustang are the sparsest — is worth a mark or two in most GK papers.

Because hydropower is Nepal's flagship development sector, exam questions frequently ask for the country's largest plant, its major rivers for generation, and the shift from load-shedding to exports. As of its completion, Nepal's largest operational hydropower plant is the Upper Tamakoshi Hydroelectric Project (456 MW) on the Tamakoshi River in Dolakha, which reached full commercial operation in September 2021 and was financed largely by domestic institutions such as the Employees Provident Fund and Citizen Investment Trust. The complete inventory of operational, under-construction and proposed plants — including Arun-3, Budhi Gandaki and West Seti — is maintained on the hydropower page (/hydro).

For durable economy questions, remittances are central: personal remittances were worth about 26.2% of GDP in 2024 (World Bank), placing Nepal among the most remittance-dependent economies in the world. Nepal's currency is the Nepali rupee, issued by the central bank, Nepal Rastra Bank (established 1956). Because forex, fuel and gold prices change daily, quote structural figures like the remittance share of GDP rather than a price you cannot date.

International-relations questions cluster around the two organisations most associated with Nepal. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was founded at the first summit in Dhaka on 8 December 1985, and its permanent Secretariat sits in Kathmandu, established on 17 January 1987 — a fact examiners love because Nepal both co-founded the body and hosts its headquarters. SAARC has eight member states: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (the original seven plus Afghanistan, which joined in 2007).

Nepal joined the United Nations on 14 December 1955, and has since been a consistent contributor of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations — a point often paired with the SAARC question. Nepal is also a member of bodies such as the World Trade Organization (joined 2004), the Non-Aligned Movement and BIMSTEC. Knowing the founding year, headquarters and membership of these organisations covers most of the international GK that appears on the paper.

Foreign employment is both a live policy issue and a reliable source of GK questions, and the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) publishes the numbers each fiscal year. In FY 2023/24 more than 741,000 Nepalis received labour approvals to work abroad (661,125 men and 80,172 women). The leading destinations in recent years have been Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia and Kuwait — a Gulf-and-Malaysia pattern that replaced the older India-bound circular migration of the twentieth century.

These labour figures dovetail with the census: the 2021 count recorded 2,190,592 absentees abroad, overwhelmingly young men, which is why Nepal's resident population is majority female and its recorded growth so low. Because annual permit totals move with global demand and policy, always state them with the fiscal year (for example, 'FY 2023/24: 741,000+ approvals') rather than as a fixed number. For revision, pair the migration statistic with the remittance share of GDP to show the economic link the examiners are testing.