Saldang is a village in

Dolpa District Dolpa District ( ne, डोल्पा जिल्ला), is a district, located in Karnali Province of Nepal, It is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal and one of ten district of Karnali. The district, with Dunai as its district h ...

in the

Karnali Zone Karnali Zone ( ne, खसान अञ्चल) was one of the fourteen zones located in the Mid-Western Development Region of Nepal. The headquarters of Karnali Zone was Jumla. Karnali Zone was one of the poorest and most remote regions of ...

of north-western

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

. Saldang lies at an altitude of in the Nankhang Valley, in the historic Tibetan region of

Dolpo Dolpo ( bo, དོལ་པོ ) is a high-altitude culturally Tibetan region in the upper part of the Dolpa District of western Nepal, bordered in the north by China.. Part of the region lies in Shey Phoksundo National Park. The sparse, agro ...

. At the time of the

1991 Nepal census The 1991 Nepal census was a widespread national census conducted by the Nepal Central Bureau of Statistics. Working with Nepal's Village Development Committees at a district level, they recorded data from all the main towns and villages of each ...

, Saldang had a population of 1,714 in 386 individual households, and as of 2011 it has a population of 2,103 people. The British tibetologist

David Snellgrove David Llewellyn Snellgrove, FBA (29 June 192025 March 2016) was a British Tibetologist noted for his pioneering work on Buddhism in Tibet as well as his many travelogues. Biography Snellgrove was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, and educated ...

wrote in 1967: "Like many other Dolpo villages, Saldang consists of a group of scattered houses built high on an 'alp' well above the gorge. The name probably means just 'Raised Place' ".

Geography

Saldang is situated at an altitude of of northwestern Nepal in the Nankhang Valley, the most populous of the sparsely populated valleys making up the culturally Tibetan region of

. To the northwest of Saldang is the village of Bhijer and

Shey Phoksundo National Park Shey Phoksundo National Park is the largest and only trans- Himalayan national park in Nepal. It was established in 1984 and covers an area of in the districts of Dolpa and Mugu in the Mid-Western Region, Nepal. The protected area ranges in el ...

. Payang Town in

Shigatse Shigatse, officially known as Xigazê (; Nepali: ''सिगात्से''), is a prefecture-level city of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its area of jurisdiction, with an area of , corresponds to the histor ...

, Tibet, is about by air northeast of the village. It is a two-day walk from Saldang to Yang Tsher Monastery to reach Kato, a market on the border with Tibet where salt and wool from Tibet and foodgrains from Nepal are traded.

Education

The village contains Shree Shelri Drugdra Lower Secondary School, which was founded by Lama Karma Dhondup in 1997 after forming a School Management Committee. The school opened in 1999 with 33 children and 2 teachers. In 2004 an Upper School was built for older children. As of 2019 it has around 80 children from pre-school to sixth year, teaching a curriculum of Nepali, Tibetan and English languages, science, music, dancing, sports and games. In 2013, the Academy of Engineering and Green Technology at

Hartford High School Hartford Church of England High School is a voluntary aided Church of England secondary school on Neot Road in Hartford, Cheshire, for students aged between eleven and sixteen. The school has dual specialist college status in both languages an ...

in Connecticut, US, designed a solar-powered wind turbine to help generate electricity for an unnamed school in Saldang.

References

External links

UN map of the municipalities of Dolpa District
{{Dolpa District Populated places in Dolpa District