BS), the first-ever church in Nepal Bhimsen Temple Location The municipality of Pokhara spans from north to south and from east to west but, unlike the capital Kathmandu, it is quite loosely built up and still has much green space. Nepal The gorge through which the river flows is crossed at five places: K.I. Singh Pool, Mahendrapul and Prithvi Highway Pool from north to south of the city. The floor of the valley is plain, resembles Terai due to its gravel-like surface, and has slanted orientation from northwest to southeast. The city is surrounded by the hills overlooking the entire valley. Phewa Lake was slightly enlarged by damming which poses a risk of silting up due to the inflow during the monsoon. The outflowing water is partially used for hydropower generation at Fewa Hydropower Station. The dam collapsed in 1974 which resulted in draining of its water and exposing the land leading to illegal land encroachment; since then the dam has been rebuilt. The power plant is about below at the bottom of the Phusre Khola gorge. Water from Phewa is diverted for irrigation into the southern Pokhara valley. The eastern Pokhara Valley receives irrigation water through a canal running from a reservoir by the Seti in the north of the city. Some parts of Phewa lake are used as commercial cage fisheries. The lake is currently being encroached upon by invasive water hyacinth (जलकुम्भी झार). In 2017, Pokhara Lekhnath Metropolitan City became Nepal's largest metropolitan city by area, occupying —which means the city is nine times larger than Kathmandu, 18 times larger than Lalitpur and 2.5 times larger than Bharatpur. Pokhara is known to be a popular tourist destination for visitors from all over the world. Every year, many people visit the location in order to travel to the Annapurna range and famous religious place muktinath. The tourist district is along the north shore of the Phewa lake (Baidam, Lakeside, and Damside). It is mainly made up of small shops, non-star tourist hotels, restaurants, and bars. Most upscale and starred hotels are on the southern shore of the Phewa Lake and southeastern fringes of the city where there are more open lands and unhindered view of the surrounding mountains. Most of the tourists visiting Pokhara trek to the Annapurna Base Camp and Mustang. To the east of the Pokhara valley, there are seven smaller lakes such as Begnas Lake,