Inner Terai Valleys of Nepal

Inner Terai Valleys Of Nepal

The Inner Terai Valleys or Bhitri tarai (भित्री तराइ) are various elongated valleys in Nepal situated between the Himalayan foothills, the 600–900 m high Siwalik or Churia Range and the 2,000-3,000 m high Mahabharat Range further north. Major examples are the Chitwan Valley southwest of Kathmandu and the parallel Dang and Deukhuri Valleys in western Nepal. Similar valleys in India are called Dun or Doon after Dehradun.
Outer Terai refers to the plains extending south of the Churia or Siwalik Hills bordering India.

The valleys are low-lying, hot and humid, part of the Himalayan subtropical broadleaf forests and Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands ecoregions with swamps, grasslands and forests holding a rich variety of plant and animal life. They were virulently malarial until suppression with DDT beginning in the 1950s and 1960s enabled intensive settlement that displaced or disenfranchised indigenous people, cleared forests and modified local environments in ways that may threaten biodiversity and contribute to increasingly severe flooding downstream in India and Bangladesh. Nevertheless, the valleys are still areas of great natural beauty with rich ecosystems.