Kathmandu Durbar Square

Kathmandu Durbar Square, known locally as Hanuman Dhoka, was the royal seat of the Malla and then the Shah kings for more than five centuries, and is one of the seven monument zones of the Kathmandu Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a dense open-air museum of Newar art, built up over generations of royal patronage.

Its landmarks read almost as a roll-call of its kings. Mahendra Malla raised the towering Taleju Temple in 1564 — dedicated to the Mallas' patron goddess and opened to Hindus just once a year, at Dashain — along with the nearby Jagannath Temple (1563), famous for the erotic carvings on its roof struts. The square's golden age belongs to Pratap Malla (r. 1641–1674), whose Tibet-trade wealth paid for the vermilion-draped Hanuman statue at the palace gate (1672), the fearsome black-stone Kal Bhairav, his own kneeling statue on a column (1670), and a celebrated stone inscription in fifteen scripts (1664). The three-storey Kumari Ghar, home of Kathmandu's living goddess, was built by Jaya Prakash Malla in 1757; after the conquest, Prithvi Narayan Shah added the nine-storey Basantapur (Nautalle) tower around 1770 to mark his unification of Nepal. Older than all of them is Kasthamandap, the wooden public rest-house that gave the city its name — excavation after its 2015 collapse traced its origins to the Lichhavi era.

The square is one of three rival royal showpieces created when the valley split into the kingdoms of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur after the death of Yaksha Malla around 1482; it was here, during Indra Jatra in 1768, that Prithvi Narayan Shah seized Kathmandu and began the end of Malla rule. The 2015 earthquake fell hard on the square — Kasthamandap, the Maju Deval and the Trailokya Mohan temple collapsed entirely and the tower lost its upper tiers — though Kasthamandap has since been rebuilt.

It remains the living heart of the old city, busiest and most magical during Indra Jatra when the Kumari is drawn through the lanes in her chariot. Come early or late for the best light, and wander out into the Asan and Indrachowk bazaars for everyday Newar street life.