From Old to New: Nepal Address Data

An open-source dataset for mapping Nepal’s legacy administrative addresses to the current federal administrative structure.

Introduction

When Nepal adopted its federal governance system, the country’s administrative structure underwent a massive transformation. Village Development Committees (VDCs), municipalities, wards, and local administrative boundaries were reorganized into the current system of metropolitan cities, municipalities, and rural municipalities.

While this restructuring improved local governance, it also created a significant challenge for developers, researchers, government agencies, and organizations working with historical data. Countless databases still contain addresses based on the old administrative divisions, making data migration and analysis difficult.

To help solve this problem, I created Nepal Address Data, an open-source repository that maps Nepal’s legacy administrative units to their corresponding federal administrative structure.

GitHub Repository:
https://github.com/en-shushant/nepal-address-data

Why This Project Exists

Many existing systems still store addresses like:

VDC: Dhikurpokhari
Ward: 3
District: Kaski

However, modern systems require addresses in the federal format, such as:

Province: Gandaki Province
Municipality: Pokhara Metropolitan City
Ward: XX

Without a reliable mapping dataset, organizations often have to manually update thousands or even millions of records.

This project aims to eliminate that repetitive work by providing a structured mapping between the old and new administrative divisions.

What Nepal Address Data Does

The repository provides a comprehensive mapping that allows applications to translate legacy addresses into Nepal’s current federal administrative structure.

It can be used to determine:

  • Province
  • District
  • Current Municipality or Rural Municipality
  • Updated Ward (where applicable)

This makes historical datasets compatible with modern applications.

How It Works

At its core, the project acts as a lookup table.

Legacy Address
       │
       ▼
Lookup Mapping
       │
       ▼
Federal Administrative Unit
       │
       ▼
Updated Address

For example:

Old Address

District: Kaski
Municipality: Lekhnath
Ward: 5

↓

Mapped Result

Province: Gandaki Province
District: Kaski
Municipality: Pokhara Metropolitan City
Ward: 27

Applications simply search the dataset using the legacy administrative unit and receive the updated federal equivalent.

Example Workflow

A typical migration process looks like this:

  1. Read an address from an old database.
  2. Search the mapping dataset.
  3. Find the corresponding former VDC or municipality.
  4. Retrieve the current federal municipality.
  5. Update the record in the destination database.

The dataset can easily be integrated into:

  • Laravel
  • Python
  • Node.js
  • Government MIS systems
  • ETL pipelines
  • Excel migration tools
  • GIS applications

Who Can Benefit?

This project is useful for:

Government Agencies

Digitizing historical records while preserving compatibility with current administrative boundaries.

Software Developers

Building applications that need to support both legacy and modern address formats.

NGOs and INGOs

Migrating beneficiary and survey databases collected before federal restructuring.

Researchers

Standardizing address data for demographic, census, and social research.

GIS Professionals

Normalizing historical geographic datasets for mapping and visualization.

Data Sources

One of the biggest challenges of this project was that no single official dataset contained every mapping needed.

To build this repository, I compiled and cross-referenced information from numerous publicly available resources found online, including government publications, local government resources, historical administrative records, open datasets, and community-maintained references.

Each source contributed pieces of the overall picture, which were carefully verified and organized into a unified, developer-friendly dataset.

Although every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, there may still be edge cases or discrepancies. Contributions, corrections, and improvements from the community are always welcome.

Why Open Source?

Many developers across Nepal face the same address migration problem, often creating their own private mapping tables for individual projects.

By making this dataset open source, everyone can:

  • Save development time
  • Avoid duplicate effort
  • Improve data consistency
  • Contribute corrections and enhancements
  • Build better digital services for Nepal

Open collaboration leads to more accurate and sustainable data resources for the entire community.

Future Plans

Some improvements planned for the project include:

  • Additional validation
  • More historical mappings
  • Better documentation
  • API-friendly formats
  • Support for more programming languages
  • Community-driven improvements

Contributing

If you notice incorrect mappings, missing records, or have suggestions for improving the dataset, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

Community contributions are highly appreciated and help make this resource better for everyone.

Repository:

https://github.com/en-shushant/nepal-address-data

Closing Thoughts

Data should remain useful even when administrative boundaries change.

Nepal Address Data bridges the gap between Nepal’s historical administrative system and its current federal structure, making it easier to migrate legacy databases, modernize software, and preserve valuable historical information.

If this project saves you time or helps your organization, consider starring the repository and contributing to make it even better.