Nepal vs Bhutan

Why people mix them up

Both are small, landlocked Himalayan countries squeezed between India and China, both are historically Buddhist-Hindu kingdoms with monasteries, prayer flags and the world's highest mountains in the background, and both are on the same strip of the map in the eastern Himalayas. Travellers lump them together as "the Himalayan kingdoms", even though Nepal has been a republic since 2008 and only Bhutan still has a king.

How to tell them apart

• Nepal is the western one, stretching along India's northern border for about 800 km; Bhutan is to the east, separated from Nepal by the Indian state of Sikkim.
• Nepal's flag is the only non-rectangular national flag in the world, two stacked crimson pennants with a moon and a sun; Bhutan's is a rectangle split diagonally into yellow and orange with a white dragon.
• Nepal is almost four times bigger, about 147,000 km² against 38,000 km², with roughly 30 million people against under 800,000.
• Nepal is home to Everest, the world's highest peak, on its border with China; Bhutan's highest mountain, Gangkhar Puensum, is unclimbed.
• Nepal's language is Nepali and its currency the Nepalese rupee; Bhutan's are Dzongkha and the ngultrum.
• The capitals are Kathmandu (Nepal) and Thimphu (Bhutan).

Memory hook

Nepal is next to New Delhi's side of India, on the left; Bhutan is beyond, on the right, towards Bangladesh. The dragon flag is the small country, the pointy flag is the big one.

On the map

For Nepal, find India's long northern border with China and tap the elongated country lying along it, roughly north of the middle of India and north-west of Bangladesh. For Bhutan, move east past the small Indian strip of Sikkim and tap the compact country a short way north of Bangladesh's northern tip, still wedged between India and China. Nepal is the long one, Bhutan the stubby one.