Short answers, pulled from the story.
Lumbini is located in the Rupandehi District of Lumbini Province in Nepal. It is the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, who became Shakyamuni Buddha and founded Buddhism, and is one of the four most sacred pilgrimage sites in Buddhism. UNESCO granted it World Heritage status in 1997.
Siddhartha Gautama was born at Lumbini around 563 BCE. His mother, Maya Devi, gave birth to him there. He later died at the age of eighty, around 483 BCE.
Former Nepalese Army General Khadga Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana and scholar Alois Anton Führer discovered the pillar at Rupandehi in 1896. Its Brahmi inscription records that the Maurya emperor Ashoka visited Lumbini in the 3rd century BCE, confirmed it as the Buddha's birthplace, erected the pillar, and exempted the village from most taxes.
Excavations led by Robin Coningham in 2013 uncovered an ancient timber structure beneath the brick shrine built during the Ashokan era. Radiocarbon and luminescence dating of material in the postholes and soil suggested human activity at the site began around 1000 BCE, potentially making it a Buddhist monument from the 6th century BCE.
The four sites, named by Gautama Buddha in the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta, are Lumbini (birthplace), Bodh Gaya (site of enlightenment), Sarnath (site of the first sermon), and Kushinagar (site of parinirvana). These four places form a pilgrimage circuit known as Buddha's Holy Sites.
Lumbini received 1.5 million tourists from around the world in 2019. The site is a 10-hour drive from Kathmandu and a 30-minute drive from Bhairahawa, with the nearest airport being Gautam Buddha Airport at Bhairahawa.