Balasinor, also known as Vadasinor, is a city located in the Mahisagar district of

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. The city was formerly part of Balasinor State, a

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

ruled by the Babi dynasty, from September 1758 until its accession to India in June 1948.

History

Balasinor State was founded in the 18th century. The rulers were titled Nawab Babi.

Geography

Balasinor is located at , on the National Highway Number 47 and the Gujarat State Highway Number 2.

Demographics

As of 2011 Indian Census, Balasinor had a total population of 39,330, of which 20,282 were males and 19,048 were females. Population within the age group of 0 to 6 years was 4,946. The total number of literates in Balasinor was 30,314, which constituted 77.1% of the population with male literacy of 81.3% and female literacy of 72.5%. The effective literacy rate of 7+ population of Balasinor was 88.2%, of which male literacy rate was 93.8% and female literacy rate was 82.2%. The

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

population was 3,603 and 331 respectively. Balasinor had 7591 households in 2011. As of the 2001 Indian

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses inc ...

, Balasinor had a population of 33,704. It had a literacy rate of 70.5% and a ratio of 940 women for every 1000 men. 12.6% of the population was between the ages 0 to 6. According to Chambers's Concise Gazetteer Of The World from 1914, the population of Balasinor town was approximately 9,000 at the time.

India's Jurassic Park

In 1981, palaeontologists stumbled upon dinosaur bones and fossils during a regular geological survey of this mineral-rich area. They found dinosaur egg hatcheries and fossils of at least 13 species of which the most important discovery was that of a carnivorous abelisaurid

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...

named '' Rajasaurus narmadensis,'' a previously unknown predator that was 25 to 30 feet long and two-thirds the size of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It lived in the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

period. The news of the find was welcomed in the neighbouring villages. Many residents brought the fossilised eggs home and worshipped them. Since then excavations have turned up a veritable trove of dinosaur remains—eggs, bones, a skeleton which is now kept in a Calcutta (Kolkata) museum—bringing hordes of scientists and tourists to Balasinor. Researchers, after piecing together the evidence in Raiyoli, believe that Gujarat is home to one of the largest clutch of dinosaur hatcheries in the world. At least 13 species of dinosaurs lived there, for more than 100 million years until their extinction 65 million years ago. The soft soil made hatching and protecting eggs easier for the animals. Many researchers call them the best-preserved eggs in the world after the ones found in Aix-en-Provence in France. These fossilised dinosaur remains have triggered what tourism officials of the Gujarat state call "Dinosaur Tourism". Princess Aaliya also called the Dinosaur Princess conducts guided tours of the fossil park.

References

{{reflist Cities and towns in Kheda district