List of cities in Nepal

Cities and towns in Nepal are incorporated under municipality. A municipality in Nepal is a sub-unit of a district. The Government of Nepal has set-out a minimum criteria for municipalities. These criteria include a certain population, infrastructure and revenues. Presently, there are 293 municipalities in Nepal among which 6 are metropolis, 11 are sub-metropolis and 276 are municipal councils. Other than that there are 460 rural municipalities totaling 753 local level government within Nepal.

Kathmandu, the capital, is also the largest city. In terms of area, Pokhara is the largest metropolitan city covering a subtotal of 464.28 km2 while Lalitpur is the smallest, with an area of 36.12 km2. Ghorahi is the largest sub-metropolitan city with an area of 522.21 km2 where as Dhangadhi is the largest sub-metropolitan city by a population of 204,788. Budhanilkantha with a population of 179,688 is the largest municipality followed by Birendranagar with a population of 154,886. In terms of area, Sitganga is the largest municipality with an area of 610.43 km2.

Urban Municipality
Along with other major criteria as mentioned in Local Governance Act 2017 of Nepal, the number of population to be considered as the municipality: the minimum population in mountainous district should be 10,000 while hilly districts, inner terai districts, terai districts, and Kathmandu valley should include forty thousand, fifty thousand, seventy thousand and one hundred thousand respectively. For sub-metropolitan, the population should be two hundred thousand, and it should be five hundred thousand for metropolitan.

The list includes the cities and not urban agglomerations.

Classification:

The Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration has classified the local units into four grades based on infrastructure and social development. The cities listed in bold are the capitals of their respective provinces of Nepal while that in bold and italic is the country capital.

Rural Municipality
There are 460 Rural Muncipality in Nepal.