Wardha district (Marathi pronunciation: �əɾd̪ʰaː is in the state of Maharashtra in western

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

. This district is a part of Nagpur Division. The city of

Wardha Wardha is a city and a municipal council in Wardha district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Wardha district. Wardha gets its name from the Wardha River which flows at the north, west and south bou ...

is the administrative headquarters of the district.

Hinganghat Hinganghat is a city in Wardha district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Hinganghat is the biggest city in Wardha district, in terms of area and population as well. The city is administered by a municipal council and is located about fro ...

Pulgaon Pulgaon () is a municipal council in Wardha district in the India state of Maharashtra. The nearest city is Wardha, away via the Mumbai–Nagpur Expressway. Located near Pulgaon is the Central Ammunition Depot, a military area and the second ...

, Arvi and Wardha are the major cities in the district. The district had a population of 1,300,774, of which 26.28% were urban as of 2011.

History

The history of the Wardha district dates back to ancient times. It was included in the empires of the Mauryas, Shungas, Satavahanas and Vakatakas. Pravarpur, now modern-day Pavnar, was once the capital of the Vakataka dynasty. Vakatakas were contemporaries of the Imperial

Guptas The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gol ...

. The daughter of

Chandragupta II Chandragupta II (r.c. 376-415), also known by his title Vikramaditya, as well as Chandragupta Vikramaditya, was the third ruler of the Gupta Empire in India, and was one of the most powerful emperors of the Gupta dynasty. Chandragupta continu ...

Prabhavatigupta Prabhavatigupta (died ), was a Gupta princess and Vakataka queen who was the consort of Maharaja Rudrasena II. Following the death of her husband, she effectively ruled the Vakataka kingdom as regent from about 390 to 410. Early life Prabhavat ...

, was married to the Vakataka ruler Rudrasena II. The

Vakataka Dynasty The Vakataka dynasty () was an ancient Indian dynasty that originated from the Deccan in the mid-3rd century CE. Their state is believed to have extended from the southern edges of Malwa and Gujarat in the north to the Tungabhadra River in the ...

lasted from the 2nd to the 5th centuries AD. Their state stretched from the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...

in the west to the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

in the east and from the Narmada River in the north to the Krishna-Godavari Delta in the south. Later on, Wardha was ruled by the

Chalukya The Chalukya dynasty () was a Classical Indian dynasty that ruled large parts of southern and central India between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During this period, they ruled as three related yet individual dynasties. The earliest dynas ...

s, the Rashtrakutas, the

Yadava The Yadava (literally, descended from Yadu) were an ancient Indian people who believed to be descended from Yadu, a legendary king of Chandravamsha lineage. The community was formed of various clans, being the Abhira, Andhaka, Vrishni, an ...

s, the Delhi Sultanate, the Bahamani Sultanate, the Muslim ruler of Berar, the Gonds and the Marathas. Raja Buland Shah of Gond and Raghuji of Bhonsale were the prominent rulers in the medieval period. Ashti town in Wardha district was ruled by the Mughals in the guidance of Nawab Muhammad Khan Niazi who was Subedar and Mansabdar in the Mughal empire in the reign of Emperor Akbar he got Ashti as a jagir. Nawab Ahmad Khan Niazi was the elder son of Nawab Muhammad Khan Niazi who also served as Mansabdar and Jagirdar in the Mughal court in the reign of Emperor Jahangir he got Ashti as Pergana as his ancestral property. Ahmad Khan Niazi defeated Rahim Khan Dakhni and captured Ellichpur from the Berar empire for the Mughals. In the 1850s, Wardha, then a part of

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nag ...

, fell into the hands of the British. They included Wardha in the Central Province. Wardha is a sister city for Sevagram and both were used as major centers for the Indian Independence Movement, especially as headquarters for an annual meet of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...

in 1934 and

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure ...

's Ashram. The existing Wardha district was part of

district till 1862. Further, it was separated for convenient administrative purposes and Kawatha near Pulgaon was the district headquarters. In the year 1866, the district headquarters moved to Palakwadi village, which was rebuilt as Wardha city. Central Ammunition Depot, located in Pulgaon, is the second-largest ammunition depot in Asia.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census, Wardha district has a

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using ...

of 1,300,774, roughly equal to the nation of

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...

or the US state of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

. This gives it a ranking of 377th in India (out of a total of

640 Year 640 (Roman numerals, DCXL) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 640 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar er ...

). The district has a population density of . Its

population growth rate Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to ...

over the decade 2001-2011 was 4.8%. Wardha has a

sex ratio The sex ratio (or gender ratio) is usually defined as the ratio of males to females in a population. As explained by Fisher's principle, for evolutionary reasons this is typically about 1:1 in species which reproduce sexually. Many species de ...

of 946

females Female (symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females a ...

for every 1000 males, and a

literacy rate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, hum ...

of 87.22%. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes make up 14.52% and 11.49% of the population respectively. At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 87.78% of the population in the district spoke

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, 6.88%

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...

and 1.26%

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

as their first language.2011 Census of India, Population By Mother Tongue
/ref>

Politics

Lok Sabha Seat *Wardha = Ramdas Tadas (BJP) Assembly Seats *Wardha = Dr. Pankaj Rajesh Bhoyar (BJP) *Deoli = Ranjit Kamble (INC) *Arvi = Dadarao Keche (BJP) *Hinganghat = Samir Trambakrao Kunawar (BJP)

Prominent people

* Abdul Shafee, Senior Politician of

* Baba Amte, India's Social and moral leader (born 24 December 1914 ) at

* Vinoba Bhave, Freedom fighter and social worker * Jamnalal Bajaj, Freedom Fighter * Abhay and Rani Bang, Social Workers, rendering medical services to the poor adiwasi people of Gadchiroli district. * Dr. Rajat Kinhekar *

Sindhutai Sapkal Sindhutai Sapkal (14 November 1948 – 4 January 2022) was an Indian social worker and social activist known particularly for her work in raising orphaned children in India. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2021 in Social Work category. Earl ...

, A Social Activist and Social Worker, working for orphans.

References

External links

Wardha district websiteWardha Zilla Parishad
{{Coord, 20, 50, N, 78, 36, E, region:IN_type:adm2nd, display=title Districts of Maharashtra 1862 establishments in India Vidarbha