Mewar, also spelled as Mewad is a region in the south-central part of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

state of India. It includes the present-day districts of Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Pratapgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Pirawa Tehsil of Jhalawar District of

Neemuch Neemuch or Nimach is a city in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. The town shares its northwestern border with the state of Rajasthan and is the administrative headquarters of Neemuch District. Formerly a large British people, British cantonm ...

and Mandsaur of

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

and some parts of

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, 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 List of states and union territories ...

. For centuries, the region was ruled by

Rajput Rājpūt (, from Sanskrit ''rājaputra'' meaning "son of a king"), also called Thākur (), is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating fro ...

s as

Kingdom of Mewar The Kingdom of Mewar was an independent Hindu kingdom that existed in the Rajputana region of the Indian subcontinent and later became a dominant state in medieval India. The kingdom was initially founded and ruled by the Guhila dynasty, foll ...

. During the period of

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

, it became a princely state as Udaipur. It emerged as an administrative unit during the period governance in India and remained until the end of the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

era. The Mewar region lies between the Aravali Range to the northwest,

Ajmer Ajmer () is a city in the north-western States and union territories of India, Indian state of Rajasthan. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Ajmer district and Ajmer division. It lies at the centre of Rajasthan, earning it the ...

to the north, Gujarat and the Vagad region of Rajasthan to the south, the

Malwa Malwa () is a historical region, historical list of regions in India, region of west-central India occupying a plateau of volcanic origin. Geologically, the Malwa Plateau generally refers to the volcanic plateau, volcanic upland north of the ...

region of Madhya Pradesh state to the south and the Hadoti region of Rajasthan to the east.

Etymology

The word "Mewar" is vernacular form of "Medapata" (

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Brahmic family, Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that ...

: Medapāṭa), the ancient name of the region. The earliest epigraph that mentions the word "Medapata" is a 996–997 CE (1053 VS) inscription discovered at Hathundi ( Bijapur). The word "pata" or "pataka" refers to an administrative unit. According to the historian G. C. Raychaudhuri, Medapata was named after the Meda tribe, which has been mentioned in Varāhamihira's ''Brihat-Samhita''. The 1460 Kumbhalgarh inscription associates the Medas with Vardhana-giri (modern Badnor in Mewar region). Historian Sashi Bhusan Chaudhuri associates the ancient Medas with the modern Mer people. The 1285 CE (1342 VS) Mount Abu ( Achaleshwar) inscription of the

Guhila Guhila, also called Guhil and Guhadatt, was the ruler of Idar and Mewar from 566-568 AD. He is known as the founder of the Guhila dynasty The Guhilas of Medapata colloquially known as Guhilas of Mewar were a Rajput dynasty that ruled the Ki ...

king Samarasimha provides the following etymology while describing the military conquests of his ancestor Bappa Rawal (Bappaka): "This country which was, in battle, totally submerged in the dripping fat (''medas'' in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

) of wicked people by Bappaka bears the name of Śrī Medapāṭa." Historian Anil Chandra Banerjee dismisses this as a "poetic fancy", but acknowledges the 'terrible' battles fought between the Rajputs and the Arabs.

Geography

The northern and eastern portions of Mewar are made up of an elevated plateau while the western and southern portions were rocky and hilly with dense forests. The watershed divide between drainage of the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

and drainage of the Gulf of Khambhat runs almost through the centre of Mewar. The northern and eastern part of Mewar is a gently sloping plain, drained by the Bedach and Banas River and its tributaries, which empty northwest into the Chambal River, a tributary of the

Yamuna River The Yamuna (; ) is the second-largest tributary river of the Ganges by discharge and the longest tributary in List of major rivers of India, India. Originating from the Yamunotri Glacier at a height of about on the southwestern slopes of B ...

. The southern and western part of the region is hilly, and marks the divide between the Banas and its tributaries and the headwaters of the Sabarmati and Mahi rivers and their tributaries, which drain south into the Gulf of Khambhat through

state. The

Aravalli Range The Aravalli Range (also spelled ''Aravali'') is a mountain range in North India, Northern-Western India, running approximately in a south-west direction, starting near Delhi, passing through southern Haryana and Rajasthan, and ending in Ahme ...

, which forms the northwestern boundary of the region, is composed mostly of sedimentary rocks, like

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

and Kota Stone, which has traditionally been an important construction material. The region is part of the Khathiar-Gir dry deciduous forests'

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

. Protected areas include the Jaisamand Wildlife Sanctuary, the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, the Bassi Wildlife Sanctuary, the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary and the Sita Mata Wildlife Sanctuary. Mewar has a

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

climate. Rainfall averages 660 mm/year, and is generally higher in the southwest and lower in the northeast of the region. Over 90% of the rain typically falls in the period of June to September every year, during the southwest monsoon. According to the 2011 Census of India this region has a population of 9,045,726 people.

Etymology

Geography

Settlements

Urban areas

Villages

See also

References

External links

Further reading