The Kirata or Kirati is a generic term in Sanskrit literature for people who had territory in the mountains, particularly in the Nepal and North India and who are believed to have been Sino-Tibetan in origin.

The Kirati people, also spelled as Kirant, are Sino-Tibetan ethnolinguistic groups and indigenous peoples of the Himalayas, mostly the Eastern Himalaya extending eastward from Nepal to Northern India (predominantly in the Indian States of Sikkim and Darjeeling & Kalimpong hills of northern West Bengal