The old capital of the eastern hills
Dhankuta grew as a hill bazaar on the trade routes between the plains and the Koshi hills, where porters rested and traders bought and sold hill produce. It became the headquarters of the district and, under the development regions created in the 1970s, the administrative centre of the whole Eastern Development Region, a role it held until the regions were replaced by provinces after the 2015 constitution. Offices, schools and colleges gave the town a settled, educated character that it still keeps.
For most of the 20th century the hills around Dhankuta lived on farming, the sale of produce such as tangerines and potatoes, and money sent home by Gurkha soldiers serving in the British and Indian armies. Dhankuta's first five American Peace Corps volunteers arrived in the autumn of 1962 to teach in the town's two high schools, an early sign of its place as an educational centre. Many people in the district still remember the teachers and projects of that era.
The road from Dharan opened in the early 1980s and brought trucks, buses and new trade, though it also moved much of the commerce down to Dharan. Later, when the development regions were abolished and Biratnagar became the provincial capital, Dhankuta lost more of its official role. Today it is a quiet district town with colleges and offices, and a growing tea industry on the ridges toward Hile, where specialty gardens now sell tea far beyond Nepal.
