Chingleput district was a district in the

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. It covered the area of the present-day districts of

Kanchipuram Kanchipuram ('; ) also known as ''Conjeevaram,'' is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in the Tondaimandalam region, from Chennaithe capital of Tamil Nadu. Known as the ''City of Thousand Temples'', Kanchipuram is known for its temple ...

Chengalpattu Chengalpattu, previously known as Chingleput, is a city and the headquarters of Chengalpattu district of the state Tamil Nadu, India. The town is located near to the industrial and IT hub. It is the headquarters of the district and is away ...

and

Tiruvallur Tiruvallur is a Grade I municipality and a fast developing city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of Coovum river about from downtown Chennai (Madras) and just 5 km from megacity border, in the western p ...

and parts of

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

city. It was sub-divided into six taluks with a total area of . The first capital was the town of Karunguzhi, with an interruption between 1825 and 1835, administrative headquarters were transferred to

. In 1859 the capital Saidapet, now a neighbourhood in the city of Chennai, was made the administrative headquarters of the district.

History

Excavations made by Robert Bruce Foote indicate that the region was inhabited in the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with ...

. During the end of first millennium B. C, it was under the Thondaiman kings. The

Pallavas The Pallava dynasty existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a significant portion of the Deccan, also known as Tondaimandalam. The dynasty rose to prominence after the downfall of the Satavahana dynasty, with whom they had formerly served as f ...

with their capital at

Kanchi Kanchipuram ('; ) also known as ''Conjeevaram,'' is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in the Tondaimandalam region, from Chennaithe capital of Tamil Nadu. Known as the ''City of Thousand Temples'', Kanchipuram is known for its templ ...

came to power in about 500 A. D. When the Pallava kingdom began to decline, the region was conquered by the Western Gangas in about 760 A. D. Chingleput was ruled by the

Rashtrakutas Rashtrakuta ( IAST: ') (r. 753-982 CE) was a royal Indian dynasty ruling large parts of the Indian subcontinent between the sixth and 10th centuries. The earliest known Rashtrakuta inscription is a 7th-century copper plate grant detailing the ...

Cholas The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE d ...

and the

Kakatiyas The Kakatiya dynasty (IAST: Kākatīya) was an Indian dynasty that ruled most of eastern Deccan region comprising present day Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and parts of eastern Karnataka and southern Odisha between 12th and 14th centuries. T ...

Warangal Warangal () is a city in the Indian state of Telangana and the district headquarters of Warangal district. It is the second largest city in Telangana with a population of 704,570 per 2011 Census of India, and spreading over an . Warangal ser ...

until the 13th century AD when it fell to the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate was an Islamic empire based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years (1206–1526).

. Chingleput area was conquered by the

Vijayanagar Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana and ...

which ruled the region from 1393 till 1565 and from 1565 till 1640 as the kingdom of Chandragiri. The area was annexed by the

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

in 1687 and was later conquered by the

Nawab of the Carnatic The Carnatic Sultanate was a kingdom in South India between about 1690 and 1855, and was under the legal purview of the Nizam of Hyderabad, until their demise. They initially had their capital at Arcot in the present-day Indian state of Tamil N ...

. In 1763, Chingleput was ceded to the

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

by Mohammad Ali, the then Nawab of the Carnatic. It was the site of the

Carnatic Wars The Carnatic Wars were a series of military conflicts in the middle of the 18th century in India's coastal Carnatic region, a dependency of Hyderabad State, India. Three Carnatic Wars were fought between 1744 and 1763. The conflicts involved n ...

and was frequently taken by

Tipu Sultan Tipu Sultan (born Sultan Fateh Ali Sahab Tipu, 1 December 1751 – 4 May 1799), also known as the Tiger of Mysore, was the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore based in South India. He was a pioneer of rocket artillery.Dalrymple, p. 243 He i ...

during the last years of the 18th century. In 1801, the Nawab of the Carnatic, finally, relinquished complete sovereignty over the region to the British East India Company. After the

independence of India The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged from Bengal. ...

, the district became part in 1950 of the newly named

Madras State Madras State was a state of India during the mid-20th century. At the time of its formation in 1950, it included the whole of present-day Tamil Nadu (except Kanyakumari district), Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, the Malabar region of North and ...

. As a result of the 1956

States Reorganisation Act The States Reorganisation act, 1956 was a major reform of the boundaries of India's states and territories, organising them along linguistic lines. Although additional changes to India's state boundaries have been made since 1956, the States ...

, the state's boundaries were re-organised following linguistic lines. Madras State was finally renamed

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

on 14 January, 1969.States of India since 1947
/ref>

Taluks

Chingleput district was made of eight taluks: * Chingleput (Area: ; Headquarters:Chingleput) * Conjeevaram (Area: ; Headquarters:Conjeevaram) * Madurantakam (Area: ; Headquarters:Madurantakam) *

Ponneri Ponneri is a town located in Chennai Metropolitan Region, Thiruvallur district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located in Ponneri taluk. Ponneri is major destination for Andhra Pradesh people to buy goods. Geography Ponneri is ...

(Area: ; Headquarters:Ponneri) * Saidapet (Area: ; Headquarters:Saidapet) *

(Area: ; Headquarters:Tiruvallur)

Administration

The district was sub-divided into three sub-divisions each under the charge of a Deputy Collector: * Chingleput sub-division: Chingleput, Madurantakam and Conjeevaram taluks * Saidapet sub-division: Saidapet taluk * Tiruvallur sub-division: Tiruvallur and Ponneri taluks. As of 1901, the district had two municipalities Conjeevaram and Chingleput.

Demographics

As of 1901, Chingleput had a total population of 1,312,222. 96 percent of the population were Hindus while the rest where Christians and Muslims. About three-fourths of the people spoke Tamil as their mother tongue the remainder spoke Telugu. Due to its proximity to Madras city, there were also large numbers of Europeans in the district.

References

{{coord, 12.684, N, 79.983, E, region:IN_type:landmark_source:kolossus-svwiki, display=title Districts of the Madras Presidency

History

Taluks

Administration

Demographics

See also

References