Pokhara City

Pokhara city is in western Nepal located at 28.25°N, 83.99°E, and is situated 198 km west of the capital Kathmandu. It is the second largest city of Nepal and also serves as the headquarters of Kaski District, Gandaki Zone and the Western Developmental Region. Pokhara is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Nepal. Three out of the ten highest mountains in the world are situated within 50 miles (linear distance) of the city so that the northern skyline of the city offers a very close view of theHimalayas.

 Pokhara is situated in the northwestern corner of the Pokhara Valley, which is a widening of the Seti Gandaki valley. The Seti River is the main river flowing through the city, Seti and its tributaries have dug several canyons into the valley floor. To the east of Pokhara is the municipality of Lekhnath, a recently established town in the valley.
In this region the mountains rise very quickly and within 30 km, the elevation rises from 1,000 m to over 7,500 m. As a result of this sharp rise in altitude the area of Pokhara has one of the highest precipitation rates of the country (over 4,000 mm/year). Even within the city there is a noticeable difference in rainfall between the south and the north of the city, the northern part of the city situated at the foothills of the mountains experiences proportionally higher amount of precipitation.

In the south the city borders on Phewa Tal (lake) (4.4 km² at an elevation of about 800 m above sea level), and at 1,100 m the northern outskirts of the city touch the base of the Annapurna mountain range. Eight-thousand meter tall peaks (Dhaulagiri, Annapurna, Manaslu) are visible from the city. The Machhapuchhre ('Fishtail') with an elevation of 6,993 m is the closest to the city. The porous underground of the Pokhara valley favours the formation of caves and several caves can be found within the city limits. In the south of the city, a tributary of the Seti flowing out of thePhewa Lake disappears at Patale Chhango(पाताले छाँगो, Nepali for Hell's Falls, also called Davi's Falls, after someone who supposedly fell into the falls) into an underground gorge, to reappear 500 metres further south.