Around fifty million years ago the Indian plate collided with Asia and pushed up the Himalaya from the bed of the ancient Tethys Sea. Fossil ammonites from that sea are still found in the Kali Gandaki valley and sold as sacred shaligrams. Over thousands of years peoples from Tibet, the Indian plains and the hills settled here, each bringing their own customs, which is why Nepali society is so varied today.
The main periods
- Kirata
- The first dynasty remembered by tradition, from about the 8th century BCE.
- Licchavi (c. 400–750)
- Kings from the Indian plains ruled the Kathmandu Valley, bringing Sanskrit, art and the caste system. The inscriptions at Changu Narayan date from this time.
- Transitional period (9th–12th c.)
- Rival principalities; Buddhist and Hindu learning continued in the valley.
- Malla (12th–18th c.)
- A golden age of Newar art. Most of the great monuments of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur were built by Malla kings.
- Unification (1768)
- Prithvi Narayan Shah, king of Gorkha, conquered the valley and made Kathmandu the capital of a united Nepal.
- Rana rule (1846–1951)
- Hereditary prime ministers held power while the kings were figureheads. Britain formally recognised Nepal's independence in 1923.
- 1951–2006
- Return of royal authority, experiments with democracy and, from 1996, a ten-year civil conflict. In June 2001 King Birendra and much of the royal family were killed in the palace.
- Peace and republic
- A peace agreement was signed in 2006. On 28 May 2008 Nepal became a federal democratic republic, ending 240 years of Shah rule. The present constitution was adopted in 2015, the year of the Gorkha earthquake.