Chaudandi

Chaudandi lies in Udayapur in south-eastern Nepal, where the lower hill country meets the northern edge of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Seasonal watercourses, forested slopes and pockets of cultivable ground shape how villages and fields spread across the terrain, tied together by paths between small market centres.

Before the Shah kings unified Nepal, this district belonged to the Sen dynasty. Their kingdom was called Chaudandi, and its capital was the hill fort of Chaudandigadhi. The last Sen king, Karna Sen, fled to Vijayapur when the Gorkha army invaded and took the kingdom in the late eighteenth century.

Udayapur's southern exposure offers easier links to the plains than the higher districts to the north, while nearby ridges lead into the Nepalese middle hills. Food production and local exchange depended on the quality of individual slopes and on the paths connecting them.