Simikot is the administrative headquarters of

Humla District Humla District ( ne, हुम्ला जिल्ला), a part of Karnali Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Simikot as its district headquarters, covers an area of and has population of 50,858 a ...

Karnali Zone Karnali Zone ( ne, खसान अञ्चल) was one of the fourteen zones located in the Mid-Western Development Region of Nepal. The headquarters of Karnali Zone was Jumla. Karnali Zone was one of the poorest and most remote regions of ...

in the mountain region of northwestern

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...

Significance

Lying at an altitude of just over 2,900m on a gentle slope high above the

Humla Karnali River This is a list of rivers of Nepal, east to west. This list is arranged by drainage basin, indented to show the structure of confluences. Tributaries rising inside India are not shown. The basin is generally categorized into ten major basins as li ...

, Simikot lies on an ancient trade-cum-pilgrimage route to

Mount Kailash Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; ; sa, कैलास, ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It has an altitude of ...

. Mount Kailash is located in the

Purang County Purang County or Burang County (; ) is an administrative division of Ngari Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region (''TAR'') of China. The county seat is Purang Town, known as ''Taklakot'' in Nepali. The county covers an area of , and has a po ...

of the

Tibetan Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of Ü ...

, China, which borders Humla district of Nepal to the north. In the

April 2015 Nepal earthquake The April 2015 Nepal earthquake (also known as the Gorkha earthquake) killed 8,964 people and injured 21,952 more. It occurred at on Saturday, 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8 Mw or 8.1 Ms and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of X (''Extreme ...

, the popular Tatopani-

Zhangmu Zhangmu (also from Tibetan as Dram or Zham, from Nepali as Khasa) is a customs town and port of entry located in Nyalam County on the Nepal-China border, just uphill and across the Bhote Koshi River from the Nepalese town of Kodari. At above se ...

route for the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash was badly damaged. In the aftermath of this earthquake the traffic for the annual pilgrimage to Mount Kailash shifted to Humla. Pilgrims would fly from

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

Nepalgunj Nepalgunj (), also spelled Nepalganj, is a Sub-Metropolitan City in Banke District, Nepal. It lies on the Terai plains near the southern border with Bahraich district in Uttar Pradesh, India. Nepalgunj is 153 kilometers south-west of Ghorahi ...

, and then from Nepalgunj to Simikot. At Simikot, they would either spend a night in this village's few hotels, or would straightaway be taken in helicopter flights to

Hilsa The ilish (''Tenualosa ilisha'') ( bn, ইলিশ, translit=iliś; also known as the ilishi, hilsa, hilsa herring or hilsa shad, is a species of fish related to the herring, in the family Clupeidae. It is a very popular and sought-after food ...

, from where they would cross into Tibet (China).

Transport

Access to Simikot from developed parts of Nepal is mainly by air. Simikot Airport's relatively short runway at nearly 3,000 metre elevation requires passenger planes with

STOL A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft is a conventional fixed-wing aircraft that has short runway requirements for takeoff and landing. Many STOL-designed aircraft also feature various arrangements for use on airstrips with harsh condi ...

characteristics such as

Dornier Do 28 The type designation Dornier Do 28 comprises two different twin-engine STOL utility aircraft, manufactured by Dornier Flugzeugbau GmbH. Most of them served with the German Air Force and '' Marineflieger'' and other air forces around the world in ...

and

de Havilland Twin Otter The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter is a Canadian STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada, which produced the aircraft from 1965 to 1988; Viking Air purchased the type certificate, then restarted ...

. Roads from the south have only reached Jumla to the southeast, however a rough road has been built from the

Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions ...

border crossing Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...

, WNW

Media

Simikot has two

Community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting. Community stations serve geographic communities and communities of interest. They broadcast content that is popu ...

Stations: Radio Karnali Aawaj at 94.2 MHz and Radio Kailash at 103.4 MHz.

References

Populated places in Humla District Humla District {{Humla-geo-stub

Significance

Transport

Media

See also

References