Population: census-constrained hexagons (H3 resolution 8, about 0.74 km²). Each of Nepal's 753 local units is scaled to its census total: 2021 from the National Statistics Office tables, 2001 from the census re-aggregated to today's units (citypopulation.de compilation of NSO data, with district totals where a unit figure is missing). The within-unit pattern comes from the Kontur Population grid (2023, built-up informed) for 2021 and from GHS-POP 2000 for 2001. Height and colour both show people per km².
Why not a grid as published: WorldPop, Meta HRSL, GHS-POP and Kontur were each checked against census totals with the official boundaries. All share the same unit-level errors in Nepal (Butwal at a fifth of its census population, Punarbas at three times), so they are used only for the within-unit distribution.
Urban centres: Degree of Urbanisation rules (UN Statistical Commission 2020) applied to a 1 km grid built from the hexagons: contiguous cells with at least 1,500 people per km² whose total population is at least 50,000, with holes and gaps filled. Centres cut across municipal borders. A centre is named after the most populous municipality it overlaps. The 2001 outlines apply the same rules to the 2001 grid.
Driving distances: OSRM routing on OpenStreetMap roads between centre centroids. Implied speed is road distance divided by routed time. Nepal's road network in OpenStreetMap is good for highways, so times are indicative.
Other layers: highways and routes from OpenStreetMap, boundaries from OCHA (COD-AB 2024), elevation from Copernicus DEM via Open-Meteo, basemaps from CARTO and Esri.