Patan (पाटन), Nepal

Patan Durbar Square, Nepal


Patan (पाटन) is the second biggest city in the Kathmandu Valley after Kathmandu itself. It is also known as Lalitpur. Both the names Patan and Lalitpur actually came from the same source: the name Lalitapattan, in Sanskrit. Patan is said to be the oldest of the cities in the Kathmandu Valley having been founded as early as the third century BC during the Kirat dynasty.

Being once the capital of ancient kingdoms, Patan also have its own Durbar Square, just like Kathmandu, and it is today the center of attraction for visitors, since this is where all the elaborately ornate temples and palaces are concentrated.

World Heritage Site Inscription Details

The heritage sites in Patan was inscribed, along with those in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, as World Heritage Sites in 1979. Details below:

Location: N 27 42 14.22 E 85 18 30.888 covering a core zone of 188.95 hectares and a buffer zone of 239.34 hectares of the Kathmandu Valley
Inscription Year: 1979
Type of Site: Cultural
Inscription Criteria: III, IV, VI

Travel to Patan

You can get to Patan by taking the micro bus from the Ratnapark bus stop in Kathmandu. Alternatively take a taxi. If you can walk, it's a journey of 90 to 120 minutes from Kathmandu.

Travel within Patan

The Durbar Square of Patan is where you want to be. Within the Durbar Square, the palace buildings are to the east while the temples are to the west, separated by a main road. They can all be explored on foot.

Shikhara in Patan's Durbar Square

Places of Interest in Patan

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

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