Dailekh District

Dailekh District (दैलेख जिल्ला ) a part of Karnali Province, is one of the 77 districts of Nepal. The district, with Dailekh as its district headquarters, covers an area of 1,502 km2 and had a population of 225,201 in 2001 and 261,770 in 2011.

Etymology
It is said that the name Dailekh is derived from Dadhi Lekh. Dadhi stands for Dadhichi. Dadhichi was a sage in ancient time and Lekh mean hill. Etymologically ‘Dadhi Lekh’ means the hill where sage Dadhichi meditated. There is also another story about name that, in ancient time it was a place of Devatas, so it called "Daibalok" which later became 'Dailekh'.

History
Dailekh District was a part of Khasa kingdom during 12th to 14th century. Sinja Valley was the ancient capital city and powerful town of the Khasa Kingdom After the fall down of the Khasa Kingdom it divided into many small kingdoms. Before the unification of modern Nepal, the area of the Karnali region had a united kingdom named Baise Rajya (Twenty two principalities). Dailekh principality was one in twenty two principalities.

Geography and climate
Dailekh is a high, hilly district out of ten districts of Karnali Province. It is situated at coordinates of 28° 35' 00" N to 29° 08' 00" N Latitudes and 81° 25' 00" E to 81° 53' 00" E of Longitudes. The lowest elevation is 544m and the highest elevation is 4,168m. The headquarter is situated at an elevation of 1448m. The district has covered 80% of mid-hill land and 21% of high-hill land. The total area of the district is 1505 km2.

On the basis of altitude,this district can be classified into 4 different sub-categories:

Transportation
Dailekh is connected with Birendranagar (the capital city of Karnali Province) with a road called Dailekh road (F-48). Dailekh road meets to Ratna Highway (NH-12) at Birendranagar (Surkhet). Ratna Highway is connected with Mahendra Highway (NH-1) at Kohalpur. Through Mahendra Highway one can get access to Kathmandu, Pokhara and other cities of Nepal.

There is another road connecting Dailekh to Karnali Highway (NH-13) via Dullu.

The national capital Kathmandu is at distance of 647.41 km from Dailekh.

The nearest airport for Dailekh is Surkhet Airport which is about 70 km at distance from Dailekh.

Demographics
At the time of the 2011 Nepal census, Dailekh District had a population of 261,770

As their first language, 97.9% spoke Nepali, 1.5% Magar, 0.2% Gurung, 0.1% Kham, 0.1% Tamang and 0.1% other languages.

Ethnicity/caste: 34.8% were Chhetri, 18.6% Kami, 14.1% Thakuri, 10.9% Hill Brahmin, 9.2% Magar, 5.0% Damai/Dholi, 3.1% Sarki, 1.5% Sanyasi/Dasnami, 1.3% Gurung, 0.3% Badi, 0.3% Newar, 0.2% other Dalit, 0.2% Musalman, 0.1% Kumal, 0.1% Tamang and 0.1% others.

Religion: 97.4% were Hindu, 1.9% Buddhist, 0.5% Christian and 0.2% Muslim.

Literacy: 62.3% could read and write, 3.3% could only read and 34.3% could neither read nor write.

Constituency
Dailekh comprises 2 parliamentary seats and 4 provincial seats:

Divisions of Dailekh
As per the new constitution of Nepal 2015, the district is divided into 4 urban municipalities and 7 rural municipality;