Gwallek

Gwallek ग्वाल्लेक
Village development committee
Gwallek Location in Nepal
Coordinates: 29.51°N 80.43°E / 29.51; 80.43
Country	Nepal
Zone	Mahakali Zone
District	Baitadi District
Population  (1991)
• Total	2,971
• Religions	Hindu
Time zone	UTC+5:45 (Nepal Time)

Gwallek is a village development committee in Baitadi District in the Mahakali Zone of western Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 2,971 and had 549 houses in the village.^[1]

Significance

Gwallek is home to the Gwallek Kedar sacred forest, which enshrouds the Gwallek Kedar mountain and houses the shrine of the deity Kedar, also known as Mahadev. Gwallek Kedar is considered the most important of the four 'Kedar' abodes found in this region straddling the Indo-Nepal border, the other three being Raula Kedar (also in district Baitadi, Nepal), Thagel Kedar (in district Pithoragarh, India), and Dhaj kedar (also in district Pithoragarh, India). A detailed report on the cultural significance of the Gwallek Kedar sacred forest is available online from a study conducted by ICIMOD in 2016.^[2]

References

1. "Nepal Census 2001". Nepal's Village Development Committees. Digital Himalaya. Retrieved 2008-08-26.
2. Pandey, Abhimanyu; Kotru, Rajan; Pradhan, Nawraj (2016). A Framework for the Assessment of Cultural Ecosystem Services of Sacred Natural Sites in the Hindu Kush Himalayas: Based on fieldwork in the Kailash Sacred Landscape regions of India and Nepal (PDF). Kathmandu: ICIMOD. pp. 36–42.