Bhaktapur - Lower Town

The Lower Town, to the south of the palace, is laid out quite differently, the S-shaped country road which follows the ridge forming a spine from which side-streets branch off like ribs. The only squares here are Durbar Square (Palace Square) and Taumadhi Tole (Temple Square). In contrast to the corresponding areas of Kathmandu and Patan, these two squares do not comprise a single coherent unit.

Not only are they on different levels but, being linked by nothing more than a narrow alleyway, are not even visually connected. Since none of the buildings in the Lower Town exceeds the palace in age, historians assume it to have developed through systematic expansion of the older Upper Town.