All 36 ruling powers on record in the atlas, grouped the way the underlying data already groups them, each linked to the earliest year it appears. Where a named line of monarchs survives — 18 of the 36 do — it’s listed here in full; where it doesn’t, that’s stated plainly rather than left blank.
Chronicle tradition (the Gopalarajavamshavali) traces the valley's kings back through the Kirat line to the earlier, semi-legendary Gopala and Mahispala herder-kings — a compressed, chronicle-based span predating the Licchavi era's stone inscriptions.
Stone inscriptions and temple foundations mark an age of expanding trade, statecraft and sacred architecture in the valley.
Nepal Sambat begins in 879 CE, anchoring a calendar tradition still celebrated across the Kathmandu Valley.
The Malla centuries transformed the valley through palace squares, temples, festivals, crafts and statecraft.
After Yaksha Malla, the valley split into rival courts whose artistic competition shaped its celebrated urban culture.
Patan's Malla court cultivated its own temples, courtyards and Newar artisan guilds in rivalry with its valley neighbours.
Bhaktapur's court built the valley's grandest Durbar Square, a rival capital in stone to Kathmandu and Patan.
Heir to the Khasa Malla empire's western line, the Raskoti dynasty ruled the far-western hills from Doti until Gorkha's 1789 campaign ended its independence.
The most direct successor to the medieval Khasa Malla empire, ruling the Karnali basin until King Shovan Shahi fled toward Tibet before Gorkha's 1789 advance.
Two dozen small hill kingdoms of the west-central Himalaya, jostling and intermarrying in Gorkha's shadow before its rise to prominence.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
A cousin branch of the Shah dynasty's own line, ruling the lakes country around Pokhara until its conquest in 1786.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
The Shah dynasty's ancestral sister kingdom, once its equal in standing, absorbed into Gorkha's growing state during the early unification campaigns.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
A Magar hill kingdom of the Gandaki basin, one of the larger Chaubise states, annexed by Gorkha forces in January 1783.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
A Malla-descended hill kingdom whose own princely line went on to found neighboring Galkot; occupied by Gorkha general Damodar Pande's campaign in 1786.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Founded around 1574 by a prince of neighboring Parbat, this Malla-ruled kingdom governed the Baglung-Myagdi hills until Gorkha's 1786 campaign.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Neighboring Chaubise principalities, both annexed by Gorkha in 1786 and later merged into a single administrative district.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Musikot and the neighboring Magar principalities of the Pyuthan-Rolpa hills fell to Damodar Pande's 1787 campaign, among the last major holdouts of the Chaubise system.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Before the Shah dynasty, the Gorkha ridges held a scatter of small chiefdoms — Ligligkot, Majhakot and Uppalokot among them — remembered in tradition under Ghale and Khadka chiefs rather than in any dated record.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Small principalities ringing the Kathmandu Valley — Nuwakot foremost among them — held the passes traders and armies had to cross.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Founded by Dravya Shah in 1559, this small hill kingdom became the seat from which Prithvi Narayan Shah, ascending its throne in 1743, launched the campaign that created the modern Nepali state.
The conquest of the valley establishes Kathmandu as the capital of a rapidly expanding Himalayan kingdom.
The near Kirat country west of the Dudh Koshi — Sunuwar (Koits) and Rai villages running their own affairs under kipat, the communal tenure that made land a lineage's rather than a king's.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Khambuwan, the Khambu (Rai) heartland between the Dudh Koshi and the Arun — a country of chieftaincies rather than a kingdom, each valley holding its own forts, courts and kipat land.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Limbuwan, the Yakthung (Limbu) country between the Arun and the Singalila ridge, held by the ten chieftaincies of the Thibong Yakthung Laje — traditionally dated to around 550 CE, each under its own hang.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
A Sen dynasty principality commanding the routes between the Kathmandu Valley and the plains, absorbed by Gorkha in 1762.
A Sen dynasty kingdom ruling the eastern hills and Tarai from Vijayapur, conquered by Gorkha forces in 1774.
Heir to Lohang Sen's early-17th-century push into the eastern hills and carved out when the Sen realm of Makwanpur was partitioned, the Chaudandi kings claimed Majh Kirat from a fort above the Sun Koshi — a tribute-taking suzerainty over Kirat chiefs who went on governing themselves, until Gorkha took the fort in 1773.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
The last independent hill kingdom left standing against Gorkha's expansion, ruling from Tansen until 1806, when King Prithvipal Sen was executed in Kathmandu on Bhimsen Thapa's order.
A Buddhist kingdom on the Tibetan plateau's edge, ruled by an unbroken line of Lo rajas descended from Amadpal, its 15th-century founder.
The upper Marsyangdi above Pisang was never a hill kingdom in the Chaubise mould — its villages governed themselves through their own assemblies, looked north over the passes for trade, and at times paid tribute toward Se-rib in the Kali Gandaki.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
The eastern Tarai plains shared the Maithili cultural world of Tirhut, governed by small local landholding powers.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Small Tarai principalities in the orbit of Awadh (Oudh) — a Mughal successor state that governed as the Mughal emperor's nominal deputy from 1722 and ruled independently from 1819. The Mughal Empire itself never held Nepali territory; this Tarai strip is the real, indirect edge of that world reaching Nepal, mainly through trade, revenue-farming and the Kashmiri Muslim merchant community it brought to Kathmandu.
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
Ceded to British India by the 1816 Sugauli Treaty after the Anglo-Nepalese War, and returned to Nepal in 1860 as reward for support during 1857 — remembered as Naya Muluk, the “new territory.”
No named ruler on record for this dynasty yet.
The Kot Massacre of 1846 ushers in hereditary Rana prime ministers, while Shah kings remain monarchs in name only.
The Rana regime ends in 1951. Nepal enters a turbulent era of parliamentary experiments, royal rule and democratic movements.
The Constituent Assembly abolishes the monarchy in 2008; the 2015 constitution establishes seven federal provinces.
Read the full story, 2001–2026 →