Districts
Karnali Province
Jajarkot जाजरकोट
Remote western hills
Jajarkot is a remote Karnali district on the Bheri River, with its headquarters at Khalanga — the town that bore the brunt of the November 2023 earthquake, a magnitude-6.4 event centred in Barekot that killed over 150 people and flattened much of its built fabric. Reconstruction is ongoing and the district remains deeply poor and little-visited. The Bheri corridor is its main road lifeline toward the rest of Karnali.
About Jajarkot
Jajarkot is a remote hill district on the Bheri River, its landscape a mix of terraced slopes, forested ridges and the deep gorge of the Bheri corridor that runs west toward Dolpa. The headquarters town of Khalanga sits on a ridge above the river, with views across layered hills that have barely changed since the Baise principalities held sway here. The Bheri and its tributaries offer fishing and riverine walking; the surrounding ridges give access to little-trodden hill country that connects westward toward Rukum and Dolpa.
Jajarkot is sobering as well as scenic: in November 2023, a magnitude-6.4 earthquake centred in Barekot killed over 150 people, the majority in this district, and flattened much of Khalanga's built fabric; reconstruction is ongoing. The district remains one of the poorest and least-developed in Karnali, and road conditions on the Bheri corridor are frequently disrupted by landslides; any visit should be planned with flexibility and sensitivity to the community's ongoing recovery.
At a glance
- Headquarters
- Khalanga
- Known for
- Remote western hills
Getting there
Jajarkot is reached by road from Surkhet (about 3–4 hours on the Bheri corridor) or by longer bus from Nepalgunj or Kathmandu. Surkhet Airport has daily connections to Kathmandu and Nepalgunj. There is no commercial airstrip in Jajarkot itself. Road conditions along the Bheri corridor are rough and subject to seasonal closures.