Other main cities and towns of Rapti zone were Pyuthan Khalanga, Bijuwar, Liwang, Lamahi, Musikot, Rukumkot (Shova), and Chaurjahari.

Since the border follows the southern edge of the Dudhwa Range—a subrange of the Siwaliks, here there is no Nepalese Outer Terai extending onto the main Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Rolpa district mainly lies along Mardi Khola, the other large Rapti tributary that is more eroded into an inner gorge and less suited to traditional irrigation projects.

They herd sheep, goats and cattle in high summer pastures as far north as the western Dhaulagiri Himalaya in Rukum district, moving south to the Mahabharat Range in winter.

Rukum is Rapi Zone's northernmost, most mountainous district including the western part of Dhaulagiri Himalaya drained by the Bheri River.

Rapti Zone has a history of radical politics since the mid-20th century and in the 1990s became a center of the Maoist rebellion against the royal government and the fragile democracy that the late King Birendra eventually supported.

In Rapti's Middle Hills the only economic activity of interest to the government in Kathmandu was cottage hashish production from scattered plantings of Cannabis indica.

Otherwise there was limited local trade, no industry and hardly any agriculture beyond subsistence to tax, so the national government found little incentive for involvement in Rapti zone.

This enabled ordinary Nepalis to reach the rest of the country in a day or two by inexpensive buses instead of by limited, expensive air service out of Dang airport or roundabout routes through India using trains and buses going east or west as well as several days on foot, so Rapti Zone's historic condition of isolation largely ended and then connection increased with the arrival of landline and cellular telephones, radio broadcasts and Internet.

Another effect was to foster invidious comparison between increasing amenities of bazaar towns along the spur roads versus unchanged austerity in the hinterlands above that were mainly populated by Kham Magar janajatis.