How loud is Kathmandu?
Kathmandu runs an estimated 72–85 dB by day in its traffic corridors — UNEP’s survey measured 100 dB at Kupondole. The valley’s 2017 horn ban remains South Asia’s most famous noise intervention: it worked, audibly, and much of it has held.
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| Rank (of 50 cities) | #9 |
|---|---|
| Estimated daytime range | 72–85 dB |
| Estimated night range | 58–72 dB |
| vs. WHO guidelines | ≈ 26 dB above the 53 dB Lden road-noise guideline (night guideline: 45 dB) |
| Dominant sources | road traffic, horns, generators |
| Confidence | med |
Kathmandu’s noise concentrates along the Ring Road and river corridors, where buses, motorbikes and delivery trucks squeeze through a bowl-shaped valley that holds sound the way it holds smog. The UNEP Frontiers 2022 survey measured 100 dB at Kupondole, one of the crossing points between Kathmandu and Lalitpur.
The city is also home to the region’s most cited noise success: in April 2017, the valley’s traffic police imposed a blanket horn ban — no honking except emergencies — and enforced it with on-the-spot fines. The change was immediate and widely reported; a city that had sounded like Delhi went, by South Asian standards, strangely quiet. Compliance has eroded at intersections since, but the ban remains policy and the baseline stayed lower.
What the ban couldn’t touch persists: diesel generators that bridge power cuts, temple bells and festival processions that are part of the city’s identity, and engine noise from a fleet that grew faster than the roads. Nepal’s national standards mirror the WHO-derived 55/45 dB residential pattern.
Kathmandu noise: the specifics
- UNEP Frontiers 2022 measured 100 dB at Kupondole.
- The Kathmandu valley horn ban (April 2017) — honking prohibited except in emergencies — measurably quieted the city and remains policy.
- Generator noise during power cuts remains a distinctive non-traffic source.
- Estimated 72–85 dB daytime range vs. the WHO’s 53 dB Lden guideline — roughly 26 dB over.
Ranges are estimates from our published-source corpus (UNEP Frontiers 2022, Mimi Worldwide Hearing Index, official noise maps and peer-reviewed studies) — see the methodology note on the City Sound Map. We publish ranges and confidence labels, not false point precision.
Measure your own street
Standing somewhere loud in Kathmandu right now? Measure it with the free online decibel meter → No install, nothing recorded.