Sunuwar people
Ethnic group in South Asia
The Sunuwar or Koinch are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group (Nepali:सुनुवार जाति|Sunuwār Jāti), a Kirati tribe native to Nepal, parts of India (West Bengal and Sikkim) and southern Bhutan. They speak the Sunuwar language. According to the 2001 census of Nepal, 17% of the tribe follow the Kirant religion and adopt the Mundhum (Kiranti) culture.
The Kõinchs (Sunuwar) number 82,705 in total. The term ‘Kõinchs’ is also the name of the mother tongue. Other terms like Mukhiya or Mukhia are exonyms of the tribe. Sunuwar have a distinct language, religion, culture and social customs.
01Demographics
The Central Bureau of Statistics of Nepal classifies the Sunuwar as a subgroup within the broader social group of Mountain/Hill Janajati. At the time of the Nepal census of 2011, 55,712 people (0.2% of the population of Nepal) were Sunuwar. The frequency of Sunuwar by province was as follows:
- Bagmati Province (0.5%)
- Koshi Province (0.5%)
- Madhesh Province (0.1%)
- Gandaki Province (0.0%)
- Lumbini Province (0.0%)
- Sudurpashchim Province (0.0%)
- Karnali Province (0.0%)
The frequency of Sunuwar was higher than the national average (0.2%) in the following districts:
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Sunuwar people”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Kirat Sunuwar Group Kirat new year celebration 13 December 2018 Kent Uk.jpg by Zab Sudio uk, CC BY-SA 4.0
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