Jhabua is a

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municipa ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (, ; meaning 'central province') is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal, and the largest city is Indore, with Jabalpur, Ujjain, Gwalior, Sagar, and Rewa being the other major cities. Madhya Pradesh is the seco ...

state in central India. The town of

Jhabua Jhabua is a town and a municipality in Jhabua district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of Jhabua District. Recently the district has got international recognition because of its endemic hen species ...

is the administrative headquarters of the district.

Geography

Jhabua district lies in the western part of Madhya Pradesh. It is surrounded by

Dahod Dahod is a city on the banks of the Dudhimati River in Dahod District in the State of Gujarat, India. It is said that it has taken its name from Saint Dadhichi, who had an Ashram on the bank of Dudhumati river. The city serves as District ...

and Chhota Udaipur districts of Gujarat,

Banswara district Banswara District has an area of , which is 1.47% of Rajasthan state, India. The city of Banswara is the district headquarters. It is bounded on the north by Udaipur District, on the northeast by Pratapgarh District, on the east and southeast ...

of Rajasthan, and Alirajpur,

Dhar Dhar is a city located in Dhar district of the Malwa region in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The city is the administrative headquarters of the Dhar district. Before Indian independence from Great Britain, it was the capital of the Dh ...

and

Ratlam Ratlam, known historically as Ratnapuri (lit. ''gem city''), is a city in the northwestern part of the Malwa region in Madhya Pradesh state of India. The city of Ratlam lies above sea level. It is the administrative headquarters of Ratlam di ...

districts of Madhya Pradesh. It has an area of 3,782 km². The terrain is hilly and undulating. Average rainfall in the district is about 800 mm. The district is divided into five tehsils and six community development blocks. Jhabua district was divided into two parts in May 2008, namely Alirajpur and Jhabua. Aliarajpur, Jobat, Udaigarh, Bhabra, Sondawa and Katthiwada are the 6 blocks of new district, Alirajpur. Jhabua district now consists of jHabua, Meghnagar, Ranapur, Rama, Thandla and Petlawad blocks. Bhil tribe girls in Jhabua

Economy

The district is highly drought-prone and degraded waste lands form the matrix of Jhabua. The women make lovely ethnic items including bamboo products, dolls, bead-jewellery and other items that have for long decorated the living rooms all over the country. The men have for ages adorned "Teer-Kamthi", the bow and arrow, which has been their symbol of chivalry and self-defence. In 2006 the

Ministry of Panchayati Raj The Ministry of Panchayati Raj is a branch of the Government of India. Ministry of Panchayati Raj looks into all matters relating to the Panchayati Raj and Panchayati Raj Institutions. It was created in May 2004. The ministry is headed by a ...

named Jhabua one of the country's 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640). It is one of the 24 districts in Madhya Pradesh currently receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF).

Demographics

According to the 2011 census Jhabua 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 a ...

of 1,025,048, roughly equal to the nation of

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

or the US state of

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

. This gives it a ranking of 440th in India (out of a total of 640). 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 30.58%. Jhabua 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 d ...

of 989

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 ...

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, huma ...

of 44.45%. Scheduled Castes and Tribes made up 1.70% and 87.00% of the population respectively. As per the 2001 census Jhabua district (considering the separation of Alirajpur) had a total population of 784,286, out of which 396,141 were males and 388,145 were females. 91 per cent of the population was rural. 85.60 per cent of the population was tribal and 3 per cent belonged to scheduled castes. Before the separation of Alirajpur, Jhabua district had a sex ratio of 990 and density of population stood at 206 / km². Jhabua is a predominantly ''

Adivasi The Adivasi refers to inhabitants of Indian subcontinent, generally tribal people. The term is a Sanskrit word coined in the 1930s by political activists to give the tribal people an indigenous identity by claiming an indigenous origin. The term ...

'' district, and suffers from high rates of

illiteracy 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 Writing, written form in some specific context of use. In other wo ...

and poverty. Almost half of the population lives below the poverty line. The

Bhil Bhil or Bheel is an ethnic group in western India. They speak the Bhil languages, a subgroup of the Western Zone of the Indo-Aryan languages. As of 2013, Bhils were the largest tribal group in India. Bhils are listed as tribal people of t ...

and Bhilala peoples inhabit the interior of the district. More than 85% of the population speak different Bhili dialects.

Languages

At the time of the

2011 Census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...

, 82.19% of the population in the district spoke Bhili, 9.37%

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

, 3.45% Malvi and 2.40% Bhilali as their first language. Languages spoken include Rathwi Bareli, a

language with approximately 64 000 speakers, written in the

Devanagari script Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

; and Bhilali, with 1 150 000 speakers.

Literacy

According to 2001 census, with a literacy rate 36.9 per cent Jhabua district had the lowest literacy rate amongst districts of Madhya Pradesh. In 2011 this had increased only marginally to 43.3%.

Culture

A small village of 320 people in 1971, Deojhiri is 8 km north-east of Jhabua on the Ahmedabad-Indore State Highway No.22. It is at a distance of 1 km on the western side of the road, on the Sunar river. As the name of the village denotes there is an ancient temple and (''Jhiri'') or a perennial spring. The spring has been built up into a ''Kund''. A festival is held on

Baisakh Vaisakha; hi, बैसाख, Baisākh; pa, ਵਿਸਾਖ/وساکھ , te, వైశాఖ, kn, ವೈಶಾಖ, Vaiśākha; ml, വൈശാഖം, Vaiśākham; mr, वैशाख, Vaiśākh; ta, வைகாசி, Vaikāci; ne, � ...

Poornima, which falls mostly in the month of April according to the Gregorian calendar. Katthivada in Jhabua district is noted for its large mangoes.

References

External links

Official website
{{Coord, 22.7667, N, 74.6, E, type:adm3rd_source:itwiki, display=title Districts of Madhya Pradesh