Image number: 07NEP-5472

A woman sells necklaces (some made of bone) in Patan, Nepal. Patan was probably founded by King Veer Deva in 299 AD from a much older settlement. Patan, the oldest city in the Kathmandu Valley, is official called Lalitpur, now a sub-metropolitan city separated from Kathmandu and Bhaktapur by rivers. Patan (population 190,000 in 2006) is the fourth largest city of Nepal, after Kathmandu, Biratnagar and Pokhara. The Newar people, the earliest known natives of the Kathmandu Valley, call Patan by the name "Yala" (from King Yalamber) in their Nepal Bhasa language.