Billawar is a town and a

notified area committee A nagar panchayat (town panchayat; ) or Notified Area Council (NAC) in India is a settlement in transition from rural to urban and therefore a form of an urban political unit comparable to a municipality. An urban centre with more than 12,000 ...

Kathua Kathua is a city and municipal council located in Kathua district of Jammu Division of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, near its border with Punjab, India and Himachal Pradesh. The city is headquarters of Kathua district and is ...

district of the

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 ...

n Union Territory of

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

. Billawar was founded by Raja Bhog Pal in the 7th century A.D., it was a kingdom and its capital was Basohli until the 11th century.

Geography

Billawar is located at . It has an average elevation of . Billawar town is situated in the lap of the Shivalik mountains between the banks of the Naz and Bheeni rivulets, approximately 70 km from Dayala Chak on Delhi-Jammu NH-1A.

Billawar tehsil

The Billawar tehsil (1 of 8 tehsils) of Kathua district has 46

panchayat village Gram Panchayat () is a basic village-governing institute in Indian villages. It is a democratic structure at the grass-roots level in India. It is a political institute, acting as cabinet of the village. The Gram Sabha work as the general bod ...

History

Raja Bhog Pal, a son of the king of

Kullu Valley Kullu Valley is a broad open valley in Himachal Pradesh, India, formed by the Beas River between Manali and Larji. This valley is famous for its temples, beauty and its majestic hills covered with pine and deodar forest and sprawling apple or ...

, founded Basohli and established Billawar as the capital in 765 A.D. after subduing Rana Billo, a feudal chief who once ruled the area. The ruling house was subsequently known as Balouria, deriving from Balor. The old name of Billawar is "Bilawara".

Demographics

As of the 2011 India

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 ...

, Billawar had a population of 11,916. Billawar has two boroughs - old Billawar town and Phinter area. Males constitute 56% of the population and females 44%. Billawar has an average literacy rate of 72%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; with male literacy rate of 78% and female literacy rate of 58%. 12% of the population is under six years of age. The major religions in Billawar are

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

(88.2%) and

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

(9.7%).

References

{{Municipalities of Jammu and Kashmir Cities and towns in Kathua district