Mustang (from Tibetan mun tan (Wylie smon-thang) which means “fertile plain”) is the former Kingdom of Lo and now part of Nepal, in the north-central part of the country, bordering the People’s Republic of China on the Tibetan plateau between the Nepalese provinces of Dolpo and Manang. The culture is Tibetan Buddhist.

The Kingdom of Lo, the traditional Mustang region, and “Upper Mustang” are one and the same, comprising the northern two-thirds of the present-day Nepalese
Mustang District, and are well marked by official “Mustang” border signs just north of Kagbeni where a police post checks permits for non-Nepalese seeking to enter the region, and at Gyu La (pass) east of Kagbeni.

Life in Mustang revolves around tourism, animal husbandry and trade. Except for a 9-km portion from Chhusang to Syangboche (just south of Ghiling (Geling)), as of August 2010, it is bisected by a new road linking it to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to the north and to the rest of Nepal to the south. Plans call for the final nine km portion to be completed in just a few years’ time, which will provide, with a high point of 4660 m at Kora La on the Mustang-TAR border, the lowest drivable corridor through the Himalayas linking the Tibetan Plateau via Nepal to the tropical Indian plains. (The easiest and only widely used road corridor, from Kathmandu to Lhasa via the Arniko Rajmarg (or Arniko Highway), traverses a 5125 m pass.)

The Kingdom was overthrown in 2008 following the overthrow of its suzerain Kingdom of Nepal the same year. The influence of the outside world, and especially China, is growing and contributing to rapid change in the lives of Mustang’s people.