State of Urbanization in Nepal: The Official Definition and Reality

Nepali government’s official delineation of several human settlements as new urban areas has been questionable because many important criteria such as urban infrastructure and services, open space, population density and economic viability are not thoroughly analyzed while defining what is urban. Many settlements in Nepal officially defined as urban, often driven by political considerations, are operating in the rural framework forming ruralopolises. This paper analyzes various criteria needed for defining urbanization that are internationally accepted to assess Nepal’s official definition of urban settlements. Urban areas have been expanding in Nepal at the cost of agricultural, forest, and shrubland land uses. Undulated landscape, low density population, and lack of road infrastructure, among other factors, have limited the expansion of urban areas in the mountainous region. To develop a sustainable urban development plan, this paper did detail land use and land cover analyses. Using 10 x 10 m sentinel satellite imagery, the paper presents detailed analyses of land use and cover changes from 2017 to 2021. These years are chosen because after the promulgation of the new constitution in 2015, rapid urbanization started, but its implementation state restructuring began only after 2017. The urban areas, as defined by the government, expanded rapidly in the Tarai and mid Hills regions from 23% in 2014 to 66% in 2017 and is expanding further.