Introduction

Ilam ~ one Incredible Naturally Beautiful place of Nepal !    

             The headquarter of Ilam district and Mechi Zone has the picaresque location in the eastern region of Nepal. It is situated between 26°40’ to 27°08' North latitude and 87°40’ to 88°10’ East longitude which extends form east to west lying more or less within the Mahaabhaarat Range. Panchthar in the North, Jhapa in the South, West Bangal (India) in East and Morang with slide touch (Dhankuta) district in the west. It lies to the south of the Mahaabhaarat range in the lap of the Shinghalila range.

            Geographically it is a hilly district, with the elevation ranging from 140 meter Sanishare Peltimari(Chulachuli VCD) to 3636 meters Sandakpur (Mabu and Maimajhuwa VCDs) above from sea level. There are four main rivers Jogmai, Puwamai, Mai and Deumai in the District; so it is called Charkhol(Four rivers). Most of them flow from north towards the south. The climate of this district as a whole is dry & cold in winter and hot & rainy in summer. It is rich in its own kind of social and cultural heritages. People here live in peace & harmony irrespective of diverse caste, creed, race, religion and culture. A wide range of ethnic groups with their typical customs, tradition and cultures reside here. These include Lepche (tribes entitled as native inhabitants of Ilam), Magar, Gurung, Rai, Limbu, Sherpa, and so on.

                Some religious and historical tourists area includes Ilam bazaar (Nayranthan, Shigabahini Maithan, Setidevi), Panchakanya, New Pathibhara (also referred as Daughter Pathibhara), Gajurmukhi, Chitre-Gumba, Mahaboudhadham, Haghethame, Therboling-Gumba(monastry) etc. Sandakpur, Jaubari, Chhintapu, Mangmalung, Larumba, Saddithumka, Shri-Antu Maipokhari etc are some other example of tourism areas with beauty, splendor and also as adventurous trekking spots . These places attractions are its beautiful panoramic and scenario glittering mountains, high landscapes, sunrise & sunset, research destinations for geographical, biological, botanical, anthropological subjects due to its diverse flora and fauna and many more. According to the recent studies, it is seen that it is a place of rich Biodiversity, Geographic-diversity, climatic-diversity and natural vegetation-diversity all varying widely from astonishingly minimum value to extra-ordinarily high value of all within very close premises. so it has become an ideal area for research personnel.

           Ilam district is divided into 48 Village Development Committee and one municipality. Most part comprises of hilly regions with farmers as the main inhabitants along with businessmen, officials and government employees. People here treat their guest as God & show their extreme hospitality. They owe higher degree of physical development, human development and literacy rate in comparison to other hilly district of Nepal.

              As a whole, Ilam is also referred to as the “Queen of the hills”. It is a beautiful place enriched with green healthy environment equipped with fundamental requirements promoting tourism. Ilam is one of the richest district of Nepal in terms of its bio-cultural diversity, natural landscape and flourishing professionalism in agricultural especially in rich cash crop sector. Ilam is the most famous District of Nepal for tea production. It is widely famous for major six cash croup all initiating from the same vowel sound /a/ in Nepali, so it is also known as the district of ‘6 As’.Potato, Cardamom, ginger, Red round chilly, Milk - and Broom grass - are the major cash crops which are known as Aalu, Alaichi, Aduwa, AkbareKhursani, Aolan & Amliso respectively in tribal Nepali language.