Gaur, headquarters of Rautahat district in Nepal’s Madhesh Province, is a border town facing the Bihar village of Bairgania — one of the many points where the two halves of the plains meet without much ceremony. A market and administrative centre of the western Madhesh, it lies in the Bagmati’s lower country between the Maithili and Bhojpuri zones.
Towns like Gaur, Malangwa and Kalaiya form the chain of Madhesh district capitals strung along the frontier, each a node of the cross-border life — trade, marriage, festival and faith — that defines the Mithila plains.