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 ...
of
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, 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 ...
. 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 pop ...
of the
Tibetan Autonomous Region, 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 (''Extrem ...
, 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 abov ...
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
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, coordinates =
, subdivision_type = Country
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, subdivision_type1 = Provinces of Nepal, Province
, subdivision_name1 ...
to
Nepalgunj, 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, 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 conditio ...
characteristics such as
Dornier Do 28 and
de Havilland Twin Otter.
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 of ...
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 ...
at
Hilsa, 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 popul ...
Stations: Radio Karnali Aawaj at 94.2 MHz and Radio Kailash at 103.4 MHz.
See also
UN map of Humla District*
*Bubriski, Kevin and Abhimanyu Pandey (2018)
''Kailash Yatra: a Long Walk to Mt Kailash through Humla''.New Delhi: Penguin Random House.
References
Populated places in Humla District
Humla District
{{Humla-geo-stub