Darrang () is an administrative

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, municip ...

in the state of

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, 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 by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The district headquarters are located at

Mangaldoi Mangaldoi; also spelt Mangaldai, , is a town in the state of Assam, India. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Darrang district. Etymology It is named after Mangaldahi, who was the daughter of the Raja of Darrang. She was marrie ...

. The district occupies an

area Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-di ...

of 1585 km².

Etymology

The etymology of Darrang reflects its historical significance as a gateway. According to scholar Late Dineshwar Sarma, the name comes from the Assamese word " Doar," meaning "door," which refers to the alluvial floodplains in eastern and northeastern India that have long served as passageways for traders and travelers from the Himalaya and also as critical entry point for merchants from regions such as China, Tibet, Bhutan, and Central Asia.

History

No definitive records about Darrang are available for the pre-medieval period. According to

Maheswar Neog Professor Maheswar Neog (7 September 1915 – 13 September 1995) was an Indian academic who specialised in the cultural history of the North East India especially Assam, besides being an Assamese-language scholar and poet. He was a top Indolog ...

, the Darrang became mentioned only after the uprising of the king

Nara Narayan Naranarayan ( 1554–1587) was the last ruler of the undivided Koch dynasty of the Kamata Kingdom. He succeeded his father, Biswa Singha. Under him the Koch kingdom reached its cultural and political zenith. Under his rule, and under the mi ...

. Darrang at different times might have been under the rule of the Chutia Kingdom,

Bodo people The Boro (बर'/बड़ो ), also called Bodo, are a Tibeto-Burman languages, Tibeto-Burman speaking ethnolinguistic group native to the state of Assam in India. They are a part of the greater Bodo-Kachari people, Bodo-Kachari family of e ...

and

Baro-Bhuyan The ''Baro-Bhuyans'' (or ''Baro-Bhuyan Raj''; also ''Baro-Bhuians'' and ''Baro-Bhuiyans'') were confederacies of soldier-landowners in Assam and Bengal in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. The confederacies consisted of loosel ...

s. During the reign of Dharmanarayan 3000 Chutia families were established in Darrang. In the 16th century, Darrang was subject to the Kamata king

, and on the division of his dominion among his heirs, Darrang became a part of

Koch Hajo Koch Hajo (1581–1616) was the kingdom under Raghudev and his son Parikshit Narayan of the Koch dynasty that stretched from Sankosh River in the west to the Bhareli River in the east on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River. It was created by ...

. Early in the 17th century the Raja Bali Narayan invoked the aid of the

Ahoms The Ahom (Pron: ) or Tai-Ahom (; ) is an ethnic group from the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. The members of this group are admixed descendants of the Tai people who reached the Brahmaputra valley of Assam in 1228 and the lo ...

Upper Assam Upper Assam is an administrative division of the state of Assam comprising the undivided Lakhimpur and Sivasagar (previously, Sibsagar) districts, of the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra valley. The other divisions are: Lower Assam, North Assa ...

against the

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

invaders; after his defeat and death in 1637 the Ahoms dominated the whole district. About 1785 the Darrang rajas took advantage of the decline of the Ahom kingdom to try and re-establish their independence, but they were defeated by a British expedition in 1792, and in 1826 Darrang, with the rest of Assam, passed under British control. By early 17th century, the

Kingdom of Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...

took control of the Darrang Duars as far as

Gohain Kamal Ali Gohain Kamal Ali was an embanked road that connected the capital of the Koch dynasty, Cooch Behar in North Bengal to heart of Agomani in Dhubri and Narayanpur in Lakhimpur district in Assam, and ran along the foot of the Bhutan hills and the ...

road. The Bhutan control over these regions were through local authorities, who were appointed by Bhutanese provincial governors called Ponlops. By 1865, with the

Duar War The Duar War (or Anglo-Bhutanese War) was a war fought between British India and Bhutan in 1864 to 1865. It has been the only military conflict between the two states since 1774. Background Across the nineteenth century, British India commiss ...

s the British East India company took control of the Duars and removed Bhutanese influence from the area. In 1785 it was Darrang was surveyed by one Ahom officer named Dhani Ram Gohain. On 28 January 1894, there was a peasant's uprising against the increased land revenue by 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 ...

in Patharighat, a village in Darrang district. In the British response that followed, 140 peasants belonging to both Hindu and Muslim communities died from bullet wounds and another 150 were injured. In 1984

Sonitpur district Sonitpur district ron: ˌsə(ʊ)nɪtˈpʊə or ˌʃə(ʊ)nɪtˈpʊəis an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. The district headquarters is located at Tezpur. Etymology The name of the district is derived from a story found ...

was formed from part of Darrang. This was repeated on 14 June 2004 with the creation of

Udalguri district Udalguri district (Pron:ˌʊdʌlˈgʊəri), also known as Odalguri, is a district in the Bodoland Territorial Region of the state of Assam in Northeastern India. Udalguri town is the headquarters of the district. Etymology The name Udalguri den ...

Geography

Darrang district occupies an area of .

National protected area

Darrang is home to

Orang National Park Orang National Park is a national park in India located on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra River in the Darrang and Sonitpur districts of Assam. It covers an area of . It was established as a sanctuary in 1985 and declared a national park ...

, which it shares with

. Orang was established in 1999 and has an area of .

Divisions

There are four

Assam Legislative Assembly The Assam Legislative Assembly is the unicameral Assam Legislature, legislature of the List of states and union territories of India, Indian state of Assam. It is housed in Dispur, the capital city of Assam, geographically situated in present L ...

constituencies in this district: Kalaigaon, Sipajhar, Mangaldoi, and Dalgaon. Mangaldoi is designated for scheduled castes. All four are in the Mangaldoi Lok Sabha constituency.

Villages

* Bahgarah * Dipila * Gakhirkhowa para * Namkhola * Patharighat

Demographics

According to the 2011 census Darrang district has a

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 928,500, roughly equal to the nation of

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

. This gives it a ranking of 463rd in India (out of a total of

640 Year 640 ( DCXL) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 640 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming y ...

). 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. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 8.2 billion in 2025. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 70 million annu ...

over the decade 2001-2011 was 22.19%. Darrang has a

sex ratio A sex ratio is 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. However, many species deviate from an even sex ratio, ei ...

of 954

females An organism's sex is female (symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and male ...

for every 1000 males, and a

literacy rate Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

of 63.08%. 93.9% of the population live in rural areas while 6.1% live in urban areas. Poverty rate of the district stands at 45.5%. 5.98% of the population lives in urban areas. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes make up 4.34% and 0.91% of the population respectively.

Religions

In Darrang district, as per the 2011 census record, Islam is the most followed religion with 597,392 adherents i.e. (64.34%), while Hinduism is followed by 327,322 i.e. 35.25% of the district population. Dalgaon in particular contained nearly half the population of the entire district. Way back in 1971, Hindus were slight majority in undivided Darrang district (which includes present

Sonitpur Sonitpur district ron: ˌsə(ʊ)nɪtˈpʊə or ˌʃə(ʊ)nɪtˈpʊəis an administrative district in the state of Assam in India. The district headquarters is located at Tezpur. Etymology The name of the district is derived from a story found ...

and

Udalguri Udalguri is a small town and the headquarters of Udalguri district under the jurisdiction of Bodoland Territorial Council which controls the Bodoland Territorial Region in the state of Assam. Demographics As per 2011 census, population of ...

districts) forming 70.3% of the population, while Muslims were 23.9% at that time.International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications https://www.ijsrp.org › ijsrp-...PDF The Change of Religion and Language Composition in the State of Assam ...

Languages

At the time of the 2011 census, the Assamese-speaking population was 457,696 and the Bengali-speaking population was 449,205.

Notes

References

* *

External links

Darrang District Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darrang District Districts of Assam Minority concentrated districts in India