Bhopal District (Hindi: भोपाल ज़िला, ) 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, municip ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

state in central

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 city of

Bhopal Bhopal (; ISO 15919, ISO: Bhōpāl, ) is the capital (political), capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes,'' due to ...

serves as its administrative headquarters. The district is part of Bhopal Division.

History

Bhopal district was carved out of the erstwhile

Sehore District Sehore District () is a district of Madhya Pradesh state in central India. The town of Sehore is the district headquarters. The district is part of Bhopal Division. Geography Sehore is 37 km from the state capital,Sehore is situated on t ...

of Bhopal division vide M.P.Govt. Notification No.2477/1977/Sa/One/ dated 13 September 1972.The district derives its name from the district head-quarters town Bhopal which is also the capital of Madhya Pradesh. According to the Imperial Gazeteer of India, Bhopal derives from "Bhoj Pal" named after the legendary founder of the city. The early history of the present-day district area is obscure. According to a legend, the area was part of ''Mahakautar'', a barrier of dense forests and hills separating North India from South India. 10th century CE onwards, names of

Rajput Rājpūt (, from Sanskrit ''rājaputra'' meaning "son of a king"), also called Thākur (), is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating fro ...

rulers (including

Bhoja Bhoja was the Paramara dynasty, Paramara king of Malwa from 1010 until his death in 1055. He ruled from Dhara (city), Dhara (modern Dhar), and Military career of Bhoja, fought wars with nearly all his neighbours in attempts to extend his king ...

)

Malwa Malwa () is a historical region, historical list of regions in India, region of west-central India occupying a plateau of volcanic origin. Geologically, the Malwa Plateau generally refers to the volcanic plateau, volcanic upland north of the ...

appear in the historical records. The number of Muslims rose after invasions by the

Delhi Sultanate The Delhi Sultanate or the Sultanate of Delhi was a Medieval India, late medieval empire primarily based in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for more than three centuries.

under

Iltutmish Shams ud-Din Iltutmish (1192 – 30 April 1236) was the third of the Mamluk kings who ruled the former Ghurid territories in northern India. He was the first Muslim sovereign to rule from Delhi, and is thus considered the effective founder of ...

. In 1401, Dilawar Khan Ghori (father of Hoshang Shah) took control of the territory, ruling from

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 Dhar ...

. In the 14th century, a Gond warrior Yadoram established a kingdom headquartered at Garh-Mandla. At the time of Mughal invasion of

in 1561, the area was subdivided into territories known as ''chakla''s. The present-day Bhopal district was part of the Ginnor chakla, which comprised 750 villages. The Gond warlord Nizam Shah controlled these villages from his fort of Ginnorgarh. After his death, the Afghan mercenary

Dost Mohammad Khan Dost Mohammad Khan Barakzai (Pashto/; 23 December 1792 – 8 June 1863), nicknamed the Amir-i Kabir, was the founder of the Barakzai dynasty and one of the prominent rulers of Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War. With the decline of ...

managed the state's affairs on behalf of his widow Kamlapati. After her death, Khan usurped the territory, and acquired neighbouring territories to establish the Bhopal princely state. He founded the town of Islamnagar, and also established the modern city of

. His son Yar Mohammad Khan paid tribute to the

Marathas The Maratha Empire, also referred to as the Maratha Confederacy, was an early modern India, early modern polity in the Indian subcontinent. It comprised the realms of the Peshwa and four major independent List of Maratha dynasties and states, Ma ...

. After his death, there was a war of secession between Sultan Mohammad Khan and Faiz Mohammad Khan, during which the Nawabs of Bhopal had to cede some territories to the Marathas. Faiz was a religious recluse, and his step-mother Mamola Bai effectively ruled the state on his behalf. His successors maintained good relations with the

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

, which eventually came to rule India. Between 1819 and 1926, Bhopal was ruled by four female rulers, including Shah Jahan Begum and Sultan Jahan, Begum of Bhopal. After independence of India, her son Hamidullah Khan expressed his wish to retain Bhopal as an independent unit, leading to public protests. On 30 April 1949, the Nawab relented and signed an

Instrument of Accession The Instrument of Accession was a legal document first introduced by the Government of India Act 1935 and used in 1947 to enable each of the rulers of the princely states under British paramountcy to join one of the new dominions of Dominion ...

to the

Dominion of India The Dominion of India, officially the Union of India, * * was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations existing between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. Until its Indian independence movement, independence, India had be ...

. The state was taken over by Government of India on 1 June 1949, resulting in the formation of Bhopal State (1949–56). After the

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

of 1956, Bhopal state was integrated into the

Sehore district Sehore District () is a district of Madhya Pradesh state in central India. The town of Sehore is the district headquarters. The district is part of Bhopal Division. Geography Sehore is 37 km from the state capital,Sehore is situated on t ...

of the newly formed state of

. The Bhopal city was declared as the capital of Madhya Pradesh. On 26 January 1972, the Government of Madhya Pradesh announced that Bhopal would be made a separate district. The Bhopal district was officially carved out of the

on 26 November 1972.

Geography

The district has an area of 2,772 km². Bhopal District is bounded by the districts of Guna to the north,

Vidisha Vidisha (विदिशा, formerly known as Bhelsa and known as Besnagar and Bhaddilpur in ancient times) is a city in Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of Vidisha district. It is located 62.5 km north ...

to the northeast, Raisen to the east and southeast,

Sehore Sehore is a city and a municipality in Sehore district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the district headquarters of Sehore District and is located on the Bhopal- Sehore-Indore highway, 38 km from Bhopal. History Sehore stands ...

to the southwest and west, and Rajgarh to the northwest. The city of Bhopal lies in the southern part of the district, and the majority of the population resides within Bhopal municipality. The town of

Berasia Berasia is a town and a nagar palika (municipality) in Bhopal district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. History In the early 18th century, Berasia was a small ''mustajiri'' (rented estate) under the authority of the Delhi-based Mug ...

lies in the northern part of the district.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census, Bhopal 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 2,371,061, roughly equal to the nation of

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

or the US state of

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. This gives it a ranking of 189th 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 28.46%. Bhopal 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 918 females 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 80.37%. 80.85% of the population lives in urban areas. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes make up 15.08% and 2.93% of the population respectively. At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 84.67% of the population in the district spoke

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, 6.76%

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

, 2.61%

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

and 2.23% Sindhi as their first language.

Tourist places

* Van Vihar National Park *Upper Lake ( Bhojtal) *

Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya also referred to as the National Museum of Humankind, or Museum of Man and Culture is a museum located in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. The museum spreads over an area of about 200 acres on the Shymal ...

*Gohar Mahal * Birla Mandir * Tribal Museum * Regional Science Center * Taj-ul-Masajid * Kerwa Dam * Bhadbhada Dam

Subdivisions

The Bhopal district has three tehsils:

Kolar and Huzur. There are two community development blocks: Berasia and Phanda. The two tehsils are further sub-divided into units known as ''Patwari Halka''s.

Cities and towns

Berasia tehsil: #

(municipality) Huzur tehsil # Bhopal (municipal corporation) #

Kolar Kolar may refer to: Places India * Kolar, Karnataka, a city in India **Kolar Assembly constituency *Kolar district, in Karnataka, India *Kolar Gold Fields, former gold mines in Karnataka, India **KGF (disambiguation) **Kolar Gold Field Assembly co ...

(municipality) In 2019, Kolar was declared a separate tehsil.Kolar becomes third tehsil of state capital
/ref>

References

External links

Bhopal District web site
{{Coord, 23.2667, N, 77.4, E, type:adm3rd_source:itwiki, display=title Districts of Madhya Pradesh Minority concentrated districts in India 1972 establishments in Madhya Pradesh