ONE LAND · 11 ATLASES
History of Nepal in maps
Nepal as it appears in 11 interactive history atlases, from 1914 to 1918: Nepal. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.
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What was Nepal before it was Nepal? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History atlases — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.
Nepal · Mongol Empire
| Beyond the storm — the opening position |
MONGOL EMPIRE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal · Industrial Revolution
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal · Meiji Japan and post-Soviet Russia
| Non-aligned or stateless — the opening position |
MEIJI JAPAN AND POST-SOVIET RUSSIA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal (treaty kingdom) · Indian independence
Never conquered, never annexed: the 1816 treaty left Nepal sovereign at the price of the Raj recruiting its hillmen — the Gurkhas, who fought in every British war on this map’s span, from Flanders to Kohima, and (a darker entry) stood in Dyer’s firing party at Jallianwala Bagh. The Rana dynasty’s isolationist rule kept the kingdom parchment-neutral throughout; the winds of 1947 reached it anyway, and the Ranas fell to Nepal’s own democracy movement within three years of the Raj’s end. A century earlier, in 1857–58, the Rana ruler Jung Bahadur had led Gurkha regiments to help Britain retake Lucknow, and the defeated Begum Hazrat Mahal of Awadh found refuge in Kathmandu, where she died in 1879.
| Beyond the Raj · Portuguese & French India — the opening position |
INDIAN INDEPENDENCE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal · WWI
| Entente-aligned & imperial territories — the opening position |
Nepal · Chinese Revolution
The Himalayan kingdom that hired out its hillmen and guarded its isolation: Gurkha regiments fight Britain’s wars from Flanders to Burma — including the campaigns that reopened China’s road — while the Rana regime keeps the country closed. Its 1923 treaty with Britain confirmed an independence older than most of the map’s states. From Kathmandu, the fall of the Qing and the rise of the PRC bracket an era in which Nepal’s chief policy was to be forgotten — successfully.
| Neutral / de-facto independent — the opening position |
CHINESE REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal · Stalin’s Soviet Union
STALIN’S SOVIET UNION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal · Road to WW2
| Neutral & unaligned — the opening position |
ROAD TO WW2: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal · WW2
Nepal · Cold War
COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Nepal · Mao’s China
| Neutral, non-aligned or colonial — the opening position |
MAO’S CHINA: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
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