Nepal

The word Nepal appears in the Atharvaveda Parishishta, a supplementary text to one of Hinduism's oldest scriptures, dating to roughly 1000 to 600 BCE. This makes Nepal one of the oldest continuously used place names in Asia. The Puranas and the Mahabharata also record it. Whether the name originally referred to the same territory that is now Nepal, or to the smaller valley centered on what is now Kathmandu, historians continue to debate.

Several competing etymologies have been proposed. The most widely cited derives Nepal from Sanskrit: ni meaning down or low, pa meaning protector, and ala meaning abode, giving dwelling at the foot of the mountains. A second etymology traces it to a legendary sage named Ne, said to have herded cattle in the valley, making Nepal the land protected by Ne. A third connects the name to the Newar people, the indigenous inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley, though the direction of derivation remains unclear.

During the Licchavi dynasty, roughly 400 to 750 CE, Nepal referred specifically to the Kathmandu Valley. The valley's position between the Himalayas to the north and the Terai lowlands to the south made it both defensible and commercially vital. Indian traders, pilgrims heading to Tibet, and Chinese diplomats all passed through what they recorded as Nepal in their chronicles. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, writing in the 7th century, described Ni-bo-luo with geographic precision that clearly identifies the Kathmandu Valley.

The modern nation-state of Nepal was unified by Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1768, who brought together the valley kingdoms and the surrounding hill territories under one rule. He established Kathmandu as his capital and retained Nepal as the country's name, stretching it from a valley label to a national designation. The name has since expanded to cover a territory that includes eight of the world's ten tallest mountains.