During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Gorkha, a small kingdom in the central hill region, subjugated the petty principalities that existed along the southern flanks of the Himalaya mountains, some with strips of territory in the Terai. The rulers of Gorkha who belonged to the Shah dynasty, then shifted their capital to kathmandu and laid the foundation of the present kingdom of Nepal. The frontiers of the new kingdom were stabilised after a war with the British East India Company during 1814-16 when it was left with territories in the hill region between the Mechi River in the east and the Mahakali River in the west, and a 25 to 35 mile wide strip of Terai bordering on India in the south.
