Nepal

Where is it?
From this map you can see that Nepal is bordered in the east, south and west by India and in the north by Tibet and China.  Kathmandu, the capital and by far the largest city, is in the centre with Pokhara to the north-west of the capital.  The Annapurna area is north of Pokhara.
How big is it?
Nepal has an area of 147,181 square kilometres making it about 60% of the size of the UK or 39% of Japan. 
How many people live there?
The population is 29,331,000 and 80.6% of the population are Hindus with 10.7% Buddhists. 
Recent History
For more than 200 years Nepal was a kingdom but in 1996 the Communist Party of Nepal began pushing for reforms and a civil war developed.  The crisis in Nepal deepened dramatically in 2001 when the Crown Prince murdered the King, Queen and seven other members of the Royal Family with a gun before killing himself.  The King’s brother, Gyanendra,  inherited the throne but he did not enjoy popular support from the people of Nepal.  He continued the war against the Maoist rebels but eventually in the autumn of 2005 a ceasefire was called and peace negotiations started in 2006.  These culminated in an act of parliament in May 2008 which abolished the monarchy and declared Nepal a federal republic.  Since that time, Nepal has had multi-party elections with various coalition governments being formed.