Dharan

Dharan is a sub-metropolitan city in Sunsari District of Koshi Province in eastern Nepal. It was established as the fourth municipality in the Kingdom of Nepal in 1958 and is the third most populous city in eastern Nepal after Biratnagar and Itahari. The name comes from a Nepali word for the platform on which wood is sawn. Modern Dharan grew after forest was cleared in the early twentieth century, when Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher Rana founded Chandranagar, now the Purano Bazar, and a British Gurkha recruitment camp, set up in 1960 and used until the mid-1990s, accelerated its growth. The city sits on the foothills of the Mahabharat Range at an altitude of 349 metres, with its southern tip touching the Terai plains. It is the largest city of Koshi Province by area, at 192.61 square kilometres, and is linked by the Koshi Highway to Itahari and Biratnagar.