Nepal is a small ( beautiful kingdom that lies sandwiched between China and India, land-locked, with an estimated population of 26 million. Nepal is known to the world both as the birthplace of Lord Buddha and the land of Mount Everest. Economically, Nepal has been ranked as the 12th poorest country in the world with a per capita income of around $240. It has been ranked 143rd, as per the Human Development Index (HDI), out of 175 countries in the world. Geographically, Nepal can be divided into three different parts: the mountainous north, the hilly central and the Terai (plane area) to the South.