Chitwan
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Chitwan is one of the 75 districts of Nepal. Because of its strategic geographical location with respect to the other parts of the country, and also because of the diversity of the origin and culture of the people currently living there, this is sometimes also referred to as the seventy-sixth district of Nepal. People from almost all parts of the country have moved to this place permanently soon after this part of a dense wilderness in Terai (also commonly known as Chaar-Koshe Jhaadi was opened for new settlements in about 1950s. At the foot of the Himalayas, Chitwan is one of the few remaining undisturbed vestiges of the Chaar-Koshe Jhaadi of theTerai region, which formerly extended over the foothills of Nepal. It has a particularly rich flora and fauna. One of the last populations of single-horned Indian Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), Panthers /Leopards, Gharial crocodiles, pythons, and several kinds of deer live (in addition to several other known and unknown species of animals, reptiles, birds) in the Chitwan National Park, which is also one of the last refuges of the Bengal tiger. There are also elephants that reside in the National Park.
Chitwan is very famous in Nepal because of its dominant production of mustard from which mustard oil is produced. This popularity of the mustard plantation in Chitwan is attributed to the predominant soil type of the place. The soil in chitwan is mostly of the type silt. The silty nature of the soil is in turn attributed to the flooding over the ages in the past from the rivers like Gandaki. Chitwan is also profusely spotted with lands with soil type clay which are very good for the use as (rice) fields. Other popular cash-crops in the region are maize and wheat etc. The soil there is also very good for growing various types of vegetables such as cabbage, cauli-flower, radish, potato, broccoli, cucumbers, pumpkins, carrot etc. Currently there are three major stories about the origin of the name Chitwan.
- The dense jungle there (before men started settlements there) was teeming with Cheetahs. And, the word for 'jungle' in Nepali is van. So, the people around started to call that locality as Cheetah-van, which was later modified as Chitwan.
- The dense jungle in the past was teeming with Chitris (Chitri is a kind of dear), and so they started to call it Chitri-van which gave way to the present word for the district.
- Long ago (much before it grew into the vast wilderness), that region was reigned by a King named Chitra Sen or by a King who descended from Chitra Vamsa. (Vamsa is a Sanskrit word for dynasty or lineage).
The major places in the district are Narayanghat, Bharatpur, Rampur, Mangalpur, Tandi, Parsa, Vijayanagar, Sharadanagar, Gitanagar, Mandi, Kasara, Meghauli, Muglin, Dasdhunga, Jugedi, Devghat (one of the holiest places in Nepal), Dhadhdhaghari, Shivaghat etc.
Now there are about 40 Village Development Committees (each of which has nine wards or villages) and two Metropolitan cities - Bharatpur (which includes Narayanghat and Devghat) and Parsa each of which has more than nine wards or urban areas.
At present Chitwan's largest city Narayangarh is less accessible due to the main bus terminal of the city was moved a few kilometers away from the town to the corner of the other town Bharatpur, due to previous king's son's anger with the politics of the citizens of the city. It is believed that Nepali leftist revolutionary leader Prachanda spent his childhood and youth in Chitwan. The present Deputy Prime Minister of Nepal, Amik Sherchan, also hails from Chitwan.
There is a Kings Palace within a small jungle in Kcshetrapur which lies in the Bharatpur municipality. That was the place where King Mahendra died. There is an airport in Bharatpur and another in Meghauli. Meghauli is the place where the World Elephant Polo tournament is held once every year. In Chitwan, there are several colleges affiliated with the biggest university of Nepal - Tribhuvan University. The one in Rampur is the biggest and is the Central Campus for Agriculture and Animal Sciences. This is known by the name Institute for Agriculture and Animal Sciences.
