According to the 2011 national cens

According to the 2011 national census, 44.6 percent of the population of Nepal speaks Nepali as a first language.[6] The Ethnologue website counts more than 17 million (2007) and 42 million (2012) speakers worldwide, 17 million within Nepal (from the 2001 census).[7]

Nepali is traditionally spoken in the Hill Region of Nepal (Pahad, पहाड), especially in the western part of the country. Although the Newar language dominanted the Kathmandu valley, Nepali is currently the most dominant. Nepali is used in government and as the everyday language of a growing portion of the local population. Nevertheless, the exclusive use of Nepali in the courts and government of Nepal is being challenged. Recognition of other ethnic languages in Nepal was one of the objectives of the Communist Party of Nepal's long war.[8]

In Bhutan, those who speak Nepali, known as Lhotshampa, are estimated at about 35 percent [9] of the population. This number includes displaced Bhutanese refugees, with unofficial estimates of the ethnic Bhutanese Refugee population as high as 30 to 40 percent, constituting a majority in the south (about 242,000 people).[10]) Since the late 1980s, over 100,000 Lhotshampas have been forced out of Bhutan, accused by the government of being illegal immigrants.[9] A large portion of them were expelled in an "ethnic cleansing" campaign, and presently live in refugee camps in eastern Nepal.

In India, there is a large number of Nepali-speaking Indian peoples ethnically known as Indian Gorkha. In Northeast India there are several million Nepali speakers. A considerable number of Nepali-speaking Indian peoples are also present in many Indian cities such as Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Visakhapatnam, Goa, Bihar, Darjeeling, Sikkim, Chennai, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.

Combining the Ethnologue figures [7] with strong population growth in Nepal and India, the assumption of 20 million people with Nepali as their native language is a reasonable estimate for 2006.