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NepalThe Hill Region
Situated south of the Mountain Region, the Hill Region
(called
Pahar in Nepali) is mostly between 1,000 and 4,000 meters
in
altitude. It includes the Kathmandu Valley, the country's
most
fertile and urbanized area. Two major ranges of hills,
commonly
known as the Mahabharat Lekh and Siwalik Range (or Churia
Range),
occupy the region. In addition, there are several
intermontane
valleys. Despite its geographical isolation and limited
economic
potential, the region always has been the political and
cultural
center of Nepal, with decision-making power centralized in
Kathmandu, the nation's capital. Because of immigration
from Tibet
and India, the hill ranges historically have been the most
heavily
populated area. Despite heavy out-migration, the Hill
Region
comprised the largest share of the total population in
1991.
Although the higher elevations (above 2,500 meters) in
the
region were sparsely populated because of physiographic
and
climatic difficulties, the lower hills and valleys were
densely
settled. The hill landscape was both a natural and
cultural mosaic,
shaped by geological forces and human activity. The hills,
sculpted
by human hands into a massive complex of terraces, were
extensively
cultivated.
Like the Mountain Region, the Hill Region was a
food-deficit
area in the early 1990s, although agriculture was the
predominant
economic activity supplemented by livestock raising,
foraging, and
seasonal migrating of laborers. The vast majority of the
households
living in the hills were land-hungry and owned largely
pakho
(hilly) land. The poor economic situation caused by lack
of
sufficient land was aggravated by the relatively short
growing
season, a phenomenon directly attributable to the climatic
impact
of the region's higher altitude. As a result, a hill
farmer's
ability to grow multiple crops was limited. The families
were
forced to adapt to the marginality, as well as the
seasonality, of
their environment, cultivating their land whenever they
could and
growing whatever would survive. Bishop has noted that "as
crop
productivity decreases with elevation, the importance of
livestock
in livelihood pursuits . . . increases. For many Bhotia
[or Bhote]
living in the highlands . . . animal husbandry supplants
agriculture in importance." During the slack season, when
the
weather did not permit cropping, hill dwellers generally
became
seasonal migrants, who engaged in wage labor wherever they
could
find it to supplement their meager farm output. Dependence
on
nonagricultural activities was even more necessary in the
mountain
ecological belt.
Data as of September 1991
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