Nepal officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. With a population of 26.4 million Nepal is the 93rd largest country by area. It is the largest sovereign Himalayan state bordering China in the north and India in the south, east and west. The name Nepal is first recorded in texts from the Vedic Age, the era which founded Hinduism, the predominant religion of the country. In the middle of the first millennium BCE, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism was born in southern Nepal.