Kathmandu travel guide

Top 10 sights in Kathmandu

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   1© Chainwit. · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Pashupatinath Temple

   A temple to Shiva on the Bagmati, the holiest Hindu site in Nepal, whose present buildings date from 1692. Cremations run on the ghats through the day; only Hindus may enter the inner shrine, and hundreds of thousands come at Maha Shivaratri.

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2. 

   2© Etter Studio · CC BY 2.0

   Boudhanath

   A stupa thirty-six metres high on the old trade road to Tibet, one of the largest in the world and the centre of Nepal's Tibetan community. It cracked in the 2015 earthquake and was rebuilt within eighteen months, largely by public subscription.

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   Dharahara

   A tower first raised in 1832, nine storeys and sixty-two metres, which fell in the earthquake of April 2015 with many people inside. A taller replacement was built on the site and opened in 2021.

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4. 

   4© Vyacheslav Argenberg · CC BY 4.0

   Swayambhunath

   A stupa on a hill west of Kathmandu, in place by the fifth century and among the oldest religious sites in the valley. Three hundred and sixty-five steps climb to it; the resident macaques are the reason for its other name.

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5. 

   5© Suraj Belbase · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Narayanhiti Palace

   The palace of Nepal's kings until the monarchy was abolished in 2008, and now a museum. The rooms where the crown prince shot ten members of the royal family in 2001 were demolished; the footprint is marked in the garden.

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6. 

   6© Gerd Eichmann · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Basantapur Durbar Square

   The palace square of Kathmandu, one of three in the valley and World Heritage. Courtyards, temples and the residence of the living goddess Kumari stand around it; the 2015 earthquake brought down several of its towers.

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7. 

   7© Gerd Eichmann · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Changu Narayan Temple

   A hilltop temple in Bhaktapur district, reckoned the oldest in Nepal, whose stone inscription of 464 is the earliest dated text in the country. The carved struts and Vishnu images around it are among the finest Licchavi work surviving.

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8. 

   8© Bharatahs · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Budhanilkantha Temple

   An open-air shrine north of Kathmandu where a five-metre Vishnu lies asleep on a bed of serpents in a stone tank, carved from a single block around the seventh century. By long custom the king of Nepal could not look at it.

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9. 

   9© Nabin K. Sapkota · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park

   Nepal's ninth national park, declared in 2002 across the hills on the northern rim of the Kathmandu valley. The Bagmati and Bishnumati rivers rise in it, and its ridges are walked in a day from the city.

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10. 

    10© Bikram Pratap Singh · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Bhaktapur Durbar Square

    The palace complex of the Bhaktapur kings, holding the fifty-five-window palace and a gilded door reckoned the best metalwork in the valley. Earthquakes in 1934 and 2015 took much of the square, and rebuilding continues.

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   Singha Durbar

   A palace built in 1908 by the Rana prime minister who ruled Nepal in the king's name, said at the time to be the largest private house in Asia. Most of it burned in 1973; what remains holds government offices.

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   2© Bikram Pratap Singh · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Patan Durbar Square

   One of the three durbar squares of the Kathmandu valley and a World Heritage Site, in the middle of Lalitpur. The medieval palace of the Malla kings of Lalitpur stands on it.

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   3© Ashim nep · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Dakshinkali Temple

   Temple in a wooded gorge south of Kathmandu, dedicated to Kali. Animal sacrifices are made here on Tuesdays and Saturdays, drawing crowds of pilgrims.

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4. 

   4© Gerd Eichmann · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Guhyeshwari Temple

   A temple on the Bagmati a kilometre east of Pashupatinath, counted among the Shakta pithas where parts of the goddess Sati are said to have fallen. It is a tantric pilgrimage site and closed to non-Hindus.

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5. 

   5© Sergey Ashmarin · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Thamel

   District of Kathmandu that has been the travellers' quarter since the 1960s, when the overland route from Europe ended here. Its lanes hold trekking outfitters and bookshops.

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6. 

   6© Mahalaxmi silwal · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Hanuman Dhoka

   The palace of the Malla and then the Shah kings on Kathmandu's Durbar Square, named after the Hanuman statue at its gate, which has been smeared with vermilion for so long that the face has disappeared.

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   7© Ganesh Paudel · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Nyatapola Temple

   A five-tiered temple of 1702 at Bhaktapur, thirty metres high and the tallest in Nepal, raised in six months on the order of a Malla king. It came through the earthquakes of 1934 and 2015 with its terraces and stone guardians intact.

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   8© Chainwit. · CC BY 4.0

   Kasthamandap

   The timber pavilion that gave Kathmandu its name — the city is called after it. It collapsed in the 2015 earthquake and was rebuilt; excavation of the foundations then showed that the oldest part dated from the Licchavi period, before 750.

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   9© Prakashphuyal30 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Kailashnath Mahadev Statue

   A statue of Shiva at Sanga in Suryabinayak in Bhaktapur, twenty kilometres from Kathmandu, and the tallest statue of Shiva in the world. Among Hindu deities generally it is the fifth tallest.

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10. 

    10© Chainwit. · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Krishna Mandir

    A shikhara-style temple built in the seventeenth century by King Siddhi Narsingh Malla. It stands on Patan Durbar Square in Lalitpur, part of the World Heritage site, and was damaged in the earthquake of April 2015 and restored by 2018.

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