Ratnagiri District (Marathi pronunciation: �ət̪n̪aːɡiɾiː 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 ...

in the state of Maharashtra,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The administrative headquarter of the district is located in the town of Ratnagiri. The district is 11.33% urban. The district is bounded by the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...

to the west,

Sindhudurg district Sindhudurg district (Marathi pronunciation: in̪d̪ʱud̪uɾɡ is an administrative district of the Konkan division in India, which was carved out of the erstwhile Ratnagiri district. The district headquarters are located at Oros and the di ...

to the south,

Raigad district Raigad district (Marathi pronunciation: �aːjɡəɖ, previously Colaba district, is a district in the Konkan division of Maharashtra, India. The district was renamed to Raigad after the fort that was the first capital of the former Marath ...

to the north and Satara,

Sangli Sangli () is a city and the district headquarters of Sangli District in the state of Maharashtra, in western India. It is known as the Turmeric City of Maharashtra due to its production and trade of the spice. Sangli is situated on the banks ...

and

Kolhapur Kolhapur () is a city on the banks of the Panchganga River in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarter of the Kolhapur district. In, around 2 C.E. Kolapur's name was 'Kuntal'. Kolhapur is ...

districts to the east. This district is part of

Konkan division The Konkan division is one of the six administrative divisions of Maharashtra state in India. It comprises the northern and central portions of the greater Konkani region, which were absorbed into Maharashtra owing to the States Reorganisat ...

Officer

Members of Parliament

* Sunil Tatkare ( NCP) - Raigad

Vinayak Raut Vinayak Raut (born 15 March 1954) is an Indian politician serving as the Member of Parliament, Loksabha. He is leader of Shiv Sena in Lok Sabha representing Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg constituency in the 17th Lok Sabha. Originally from Mumbai, Rau ...

( SHS (UBT))

Guardian Minister

list of Guardian Minister

District Magistrate/Collector

list of District Magistrate / Collector

History

From pre-Christian times until 1312, the area - like the entire region - was ruled by various

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

rulers. The first state known by name was the Maurya Empire, the last non-Muslim dynasty were the

Yadavas of Devagiri The Seuna, Sevuna, or Yadavas of Devagiri (IAST: Seuṇa, –1317) was a Medieval Indian dynasty, which at its peak ruled a kingdom stretching from the Narmada river in the north to the Tungabhadra river in the south, in the western part of t ...

. After decades of military clashes with Muslim rulers in northern India, it was occupied by Muslim armies between 1312 and 1470. From 1500 on there was fierce fighting for rule on the coast between the Muslim rulers and the Portuguese. After that, various Muslim dynasties ruled until 1658 (Sultanate of Delhi,

Bahmani The Bahmani Sultanate, or Deccan, was a Persianate Sunni Muslim Indian Kingdom located in the Deccan region. It was the first independent Muslim kingdom of the Deccan,

, Deccan Sultanates and 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 ...

).From 1658 most of the area became part of the

Maratha Empire The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern Indian confederation that came to dominate much of the Indian subcontinent in the 18th century. Maratha rule formally began in 1674 with the coronation of Sh ...

. After the defeat of the Marathas against the British in 1818, Ratnagiri area became an administrative region of the Bombay Presidency. With the independence of India in 1947 and the reorganization of the country, it became part of the new state of Bombay State in 1950. In 1948 the district grew through the incorporation of the Sawantwadi princely state. In 1960, Bombay State was divided and the area became part of the newly created state of Maharashtra. In 1981 the district was divided and the southern part of the district became

Geography

An outstanding feature of the geography of the district is its uneven or hill topography, with about 45% of the district being characterized as 'hilly'. Very narrow riverine plains fringe the coastline.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census Ratnagiri 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 1,615,069, roughly equal to the nation of

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ), ...

or the US state of

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

. This gives it a ranking of 311th 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 -4.96%. Ratnagiri 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 1123

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 82.43%.

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 ...

make up 4.15% and 1.26% of the population respectively. 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 ...

, 88.18% of the population in the district spoke Marathi, 7.36%

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' 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 ...

as their first language. Most people speak distinct coastal dialects of Marathi.

Notable people

Notable people from Ratnagiri include: * Lokmanya Tilak * Balasaheb Kher *

Dhondo Keshav Karve '' Dhondo Keshav Karve (18 April 1858 – 9 November 1962), popularly known as Maharshi Karve, was a social reformer in India in the field of women's welfare. He advocated widow remarriage and he himself married a widow. Karve was a pioneer in ...

Vinoba Bhave Vinayak Narahari, also known as Vinoba Bhave (; 11 September 1895 – 15 November 1982), was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. Often called ''Acharya'' (Sanskrit teacher), he is best known for the Bhoodan Movement. He is con ...

Pandurang Vaman Kane Pandurang Vaman Kane (pronounced ''Kaa-nay'') (7 May 1880 – 18 April 1972) was a notable Indologist and Sanskrit scholar. He received India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna in 1963 for his scholarly work that spanned more than 40 years ...

* Swatantryaveer Savarkar was moved to Ratnagiri with his freedom of movement restricted to the boundary of the district and also refraining from politics. *

Govind Sakharam Sardesai Govind Sakharam Sardesai (17 May 1865 – 29 November 1959), popularly known as ''Riyasatkar Sardesai'', was a historian from Maharashtra, India. Through his ''Riyasats'' written in Marathi, Sardesai presented an account of over 1,000 years ...

* R. P. Paranjpye * Shakuntala Paranjpye *

Gopal Krishna Gokhale Gopal Krishna Gokhale ( �ɡoːpaːl ˈkrɪʂɳə ˈɡoːkʰleː9 May 1866 – 19 February 1915) was an Indian 'moderate' political leader and a social reformer during the Indian independence movement. Gokhale was a senior leader of the India ...

Rani Lakshmi Bai Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi (; 19 November 1828 — 18 June 1858),Though the day of the month is regarded as certain historians disagree about the year: among those suggested are 1827 and 1835. was an Indian queen, the Maharani consort of ...

Madhu Dandavate Madhu Dandavate (21 January 1924 – 12 November 2005) was an Indian physicist and socialist politician, who served as Minister of Railways in the Morarji Desai ministry, and as Minister of Finance in the V P Singh ministry. Born in Ahmednagar ...

Sadhana Sargam Sadhana Sargam (née Ghanekar, born 7 March 1969) is an Indian singer known for her playback career in Indian cinema predominantly in Hindi, Bengali, Telugu and Tamil language films. She is a recipient of the National Film Award and Filmfare ...

Sadha Sadaf Mohammed Sayed, also known by her stage name Sadha, is an Indian actress who mainly appears in Telugu, Tamil, and Kannada films. She was introduced to the Telugu film industry by the director Teja along with Nithiin in the film '' Jayam ...

References

External links

Ratnagiri district official websiteSahyadri Nisarga Mitra - NGO working on nature conservation
{{Authority control 1832 establishments in India Districts of Maharashtra Konkan division