Famous Landmarks in Kathmandu
Buddhist stupas and a royal Newar square share one valley across fifteen centuries.
Kathmandu's monuments split between a valley-floor royal square and two Buddhist stupas set on higher or outer ground. Durbar Square, at the historic centre, grew over some fifteen centuries: temples from the 16th-century Malla period carry the carved facades typical of Newar architecture, while the nine-story Nautalle Durbar was added under the Shah dynasty after Nepal's unification. Swayambhunath crowns a hill to the west, its stupa sharing a terrace with Hindu shrines. Boudhanath, on the valley's northeast edge, is a vast mandala-shaped stupa that originally rose amid open rice paddies rather than a built-up square. Together the three trace both a royal and a Buddhist building tradition through the same valley.
Kathmandu Durbar Square
3rd–18th century
A crowded royal square where elaborately carved temple facades in the Newar style surround a nine-story palace tower rising above everything nearby — one of three historic Durbar Squares recognised together as a single UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Kathmandu Durbar Square is a plaza that grew as the royal centre of the Kathmandu Valley, with construction beginning in the 3rd century. Most of its standing temples date from the 16th century, built during the reign of the Malla kings and decorated with the carved facades characteristic of Newar architecture. The surrounding palace complexes were added under both the Malla and Shah dynasties; best known is the nine-story Nautalle Durbar, raised by Prithvi Narayan Shah to mark Nepal's unification. It is one of three Durbar Squares in the valley recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Photo: Gerd Eichmann (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Swayambhunath
460
A domed stupa on a hilltop with small Hindu shrines scattered around its base rather than confined to a separate precinct — Buddhist and Hindu structures sharing the same platform as a mark of the site's religious mixing.
Swayambhunath is an ancient religious complex on a hill west of Kathmandu, dated in the catalogue to 460. Considered in local tradition to be the home of the primordial Buddha, it is venerated as one of the most ancient and important stupas in the world and ranks among the three most sacred Buddhist pilgrimage sites for the Newar people; for Tibetan Buddhists it is second in importance only to Boudhanath. Hindu temples and deities have been incorporated into the site, and its iconography draws on the Vajrayana tradition of Newar Buddhism. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.
- Tradition holds that the site hosted three Buddhas of a past age — Konagamana, Kakusandha and Kassapa — before the current one.
Photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg (CC BY 4.0)
Boudhanath
14th century
An enormous hemispherical stupa laid out as a mandala, said to be the largest spherical stupa in Nepal and among the largest of its kind anywhere; it originally rose out of open rice paddies at the edge of the valley.
Boudhanath is a Buddhist stupa in the Boudha area of Kathmandu, regarded as an embodiment of the enlightened mind of all Buddhas. The present structure most likely dates to the 14th century, though Newar chronicles record a stupa on the site as early as the 5th century. Laid out as a massive mandala, it is said to be the largest spherical stupa in Nepal. It is believed to hold consecrated relics, including bone fragments attributed to the Kassapa and Shakyamuni Buddhas, and sits on a trade route linking Tibet and India. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.
- One tradition credits the stupa with having given birth to Tibetan Buddhism itself.
- It sits on the old trade route from Tibet into India, entering the valley near the village of Sankhu.
Photo: Nabin K. Sapkota (CC BY-SA 4.0)
History
Kathmandu has been continuously inhabited since at least the 2nd century AD, when the valley was known as Nepal Mandala and its Newar population built one of the Himalayan region's major urban civilisations. Construction on what became Durbar Square began in the 3rd century, though the temples still standing mostly date from the 16th century, when Malla kings rebuilt the royal centre and decorated it with carved Newar facades. After Prithvi Narayan Shah united Nepal in the 18th century, the new Shah dynasty added the nine-story Nautalle Durbar to the same square, layering conquest onto the older Malla skyline. Buddhism left an older mark still: Swayambhunath's hilltop shrine is dated to 460, and Boudhanath's mandala-shaped stupa, rebuilt around the 14th century, follows a Newar chronicle tradition reaching back to the 5th century.