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NepalThe Tarai Region
In complete topographic contrast to the Mountain and
Hill
regions, the Tarai Region is a lowland tropical and
subtropical
belt of flat, alluvial land stretching along the
Nepal-India
border, and paralleling the Hill Region. It is the
northern
extension of the Gangetic Plain in India, commencing at
about 300
meters above sea level and rising to about 1,000 meters at
the foot
of the Siwalik Range. The Tarai includes several valleys
(dun), such as the Surkhet and Dang valleys in
western
Nepal, and the Rapti Valley (Chitwan) in central Nepal.
The word tarai, a term presumed to be derived
from
Persian, means "damp," and it appropriately describes the
region's
humid and hot climate. The region was formed and is fed by
three
major rivers: the Kosi, the Narayani (India's Gandak
River), and
the Karnali. A region that in the past contained
malaria-infested,
thick forests, commonly known as char kose jhari
(dense
forests approximately twelve kilometers wide), the Tarai
was used
as a defensive frontier by Nepalese rulers during the
period of the
British Raj (1858-1947) in India. In 1991 the Tarai served
as the
country's granary and land resettlement frontier; it
became the
most coveted internal destination for land-hungry hill
peasants.
In terms of both farm and forest lands, the Tarai was
becoming
Nepal's richest economic region. Overall, Tarai residents
enjoyed
a greater availability of agricultural land than did other
Nepalese
because of the area's generally flat terrain, which is
drained and
nourished by several rivers. Additionally, it has the
largest
commercially exploitable forests. In the early 1990s,
however, the
forests were being increasingly destroyed because of
growing
demands for timber and agricultural land.
Data as of September 1991
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