Rajkot district is one of the 33 districts of the

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 ...

n state of

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

. Located in Saurashtra peninsula,

Rajkot Rajkot () is the fourth-largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the ...

city is the administrative headquarters of the district. It is the third-most advanced and the fourth-most populous district in Gujarat. This district is surrounded by

Morbi Morbi or Morvi is a city founded as a princely state around 1698 by Jadeja Thakor Saheb Shree Kayoji Ravaji. It is in the Morbi district in the States and territories of India, state of Gujarat, India. It is situated on the Kathiawar peninsula. ...

district in north,

Surendranagar Surendranagar is Municipal Corporation in Surendranagar district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Climate Surendranagar Dudhrej, in common with most of Gujarat, has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen ''BSh'') with three seasons. The hot season l ...

and

Botad Botad, located in Gujarat's Saurashtra (region), is a significant city and district headquarters of the Botad district. Established as a separate district in 2013, Botad has developed into a key administrative and economic hub, connecting nearb ...

districts in east,

Amreli Amreli is a city and a municipality in Amreli district in Indian state of Gujarat. History It is believed that during 534 AD Amreli existed was formerly known as Anumanji, Amlik and then Amravati. The city is named in ancient Gujrati as ''Amar ...

and

Junagadh Junagadh () is the city and headquarters of Junagadh district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Located at the foot of the Girnar hills, southwest of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar (the state capital), it is the seventh largest city in the state. It i ...

districts in south and

Porbandar Porbandar is a city and the headquarters of Porbandar district in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi and Sudama. It was the former capital of the Porbandar State, Porbandar princely state. Porbandar and Chhaya, ...

and

Jamnagar Jamnagar () is a city and the headquarters of Jamnagar district in the Indian state of Gujarat. The city lies just to the south of the Gulf of Kutch, some west of the state capital, Gandhinagar. The city was the capital of Nawanagar State, Na ...

districts in west. The district occupies an area of 11203 km².

Origin of name

The district is named after its headquarters, Rajkot city. The name of the city of Rajkot (literally means the city of princes) was probably derived fro
Raju Sandhi
the co-founder of the erstwhile princely state of

in 1620.

Geography

The city is situated between 23°08' North latitude and 20º58' North latitude and 71º40' East longitude and 70º20' East longitude.

has a

hot semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of sem ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

''BSh'') in common with all the Saurashtra peninsula. The summer spans from March to mid-June. The temperature at this time varies between . The rainy season spans from mid-June to September. The average amount of rainfall received by the place is although it is virtually entirely confined to the monsoon and shows extreme variability from year to year. The winter months are October to February.

Divisions

The district comprises 11

taluka A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative ...

s. These are Rajkot, Paddhari, Lodhika, Dhoraji, Jam Kandorna, Upleta, Jetpur, Kotda Sangani, Jasdan, Vinchhiya and Gondal. About 600 villages are in Rajkot District as per 2011 census data. There are 8

Vidhan Sabha The State Legislative Assembly, also known as the Vidhan Sabha or the Saasana Sabha, is a legislative body in each of the states and certain union territories of India. Members of the legislative assembly are often directly elected to serve fiv ...

constituencies in this district: Rajkot East, Rajkot West, Rajkot South, Rajkot Rural, Jasdan, Gondal, Jetpur and Dhoraji. Tankara, Wankaner, Rajkot East, Rajkot West, Rajkot South, Rajkot Rural and Jasdan constituencies are part of

Rajkot Lok Sabha constituency Rajkot Lok Sabha constituency () is one of the 26 Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituencies in Gujarat state in western India. Assembly segments Presently, Rajkot Lok Sabha constituency comprises seven Vidhan Sabha (legislative assembly) segmen ...

. Gondal, Jetpur and Dhoraji are part of

Porbandar Lok Sabha constituency Porbandar Lok Sabha constituency is one of the 26 Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituencies in Gujarat state in western India. Assembly segments Presently, Porbandar Lok Sabha constituency comprises seven Vidhan Sabha (legislative assembly) seg ...

. Morbi is part of

Kachchh Lok Sabha constituency Kachchh Lok Sabha constituency (formerly Kutch Lok Sabha constituency) is one of the 26 Lok Sabha (parliamentary) constituencies in Gujarat state in western India. Kachchh is the third largest constituency in India, with an area of 45,652 km ...

Transport

Rajkot International Airport Rajkot International Airport is an international airport and a greenfield airport at Hirasar, Gujarat, India, serving the city of Rajkot and the Saurashtra (region), Saurashtra region of Gujarat. It is located near the National Highway 8B (In ...

, located near Rajkot city provides air connectivity with

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

and

Surat Surat (Gujarati Language, Gujarati: ) is a city in the western Indian States and territories of India, state of Gujarat. The word Surat directly translates to ''face'' in Urdu, Gujarati language, Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of t ...

. The only port of this district was the

Port of Navlakhi Navlakhi Port is an all-weather lighterage non-major intermediate port. It is situated on the southwest end of the Gulf of Kutch in Hansthal Creek, India. The Port is about 45 km from Morbi and 160 km from Kandla. Navigation is permitt ...

, an all-weather lighterage port located on the southwest end of the

Gulf of Kutch The Gulf of Kutch is located between the peninsula regions of Kutch and Saurashtra, bounded in the state of Gujarat that borders Pakistan. It opens towards the Arabian Sea facing the Gulf of Oman. It is about 50 km wide at the entrance b ...

, which now belongs to Morbi district that was introduced later. The National Highway 8A links Morbi with

Kandla Kandla is a census town in the Kutch district of Gujarat state in Western India, near the city of Gandhidham. It occupies on the coast of Gulf of Cutch along the banks of the Kandla Creek. According to the 2011 Census of India, Kandla is t ...

. The National Highway 8B connects Rajkot with

. The National Highway 8D links Jetpur with

Demographics

According to the 2011 census Rajkot 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 3,804,558, roughly equal to the nation of

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

or the US state of

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

. This gives it a ranking of 68th 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 19.87%. Rajkot 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 924

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 82.2%. After bifurcation the population was 3,015,229, of which 1,887,654 (62.60%) lived in urban areas. The divided district had a sex ratio of 923 females per 1000 males. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were 235,749 (7.82%) and 19,160 (0.64%) of the population respectively. In the divided district Hindus were 2,753,712 (91.33%) while Muslims were 222,649 (7.38%) and Jains were 28,297 (0.94%). At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 96.31% of the population in the district spoke

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

and 1.95%

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 ...

as their first language. It had a population of 3,169,881 of which 51.29% were urban as of 2001. The literacy rate is 74.85% (2001 census).

Politics

Notable personalities

* Dhumaketu (1892–1965) Writer. Born in

Virpur Virpur may refer to the following places in the state of Gujarat, western India: * Virpur (Rajkot), in Rajkot district ** Virpur-Kherdi State, former Indian princely state with seat in the above town ** Virpur railway station * Virpur (Mahisagar), ...

. *

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British ru ...

: Born in

, Mahatma Gandhi grew up in Rajkot and maintained his permanent home in Rajkot for the majority of his life. * Jalaram Bapa: Hindu saint. Born in

. *

Shrimad Rajchandra Shrimad Rajchandra (9 November 1867 – 9 April 1901), also known as Param Krupalu Dev, was a Jainism, Jain poet, mystic, philosopher, scholar, and reformer from India. Born in Vavaniya, a village near Morbi, he attained recollection of his pas ...

: Spiritual mentor of Mahatma Gandhi, Famous Jain philosopher and thinker *

Cheteshwar Pujara Cheteshwar Arvind Pujara (born 25 January 1988) is an Indian cricketer who represented the Indian national team for over thirteen years. Pujara currently plays for Saurashtra in Indian domestic cricket and for Sussex Cricket club in English ...

: Indian National Cricketer. *

Karsan Ghavri Karsan Devjibhai Ghavri () (born 28 February 1951) is an Indian former cricketer who played in 39 Test matches and 19 One Day Internationals from 1974 to 1981. He played in the 1975 and 1979 World Cups. He is one of very few Dalits Dali ...

: Indian National Cricketer. *

Pankaj Udhas Pankaj Udhas (17 May 1951 – 26 February 2024) was an Indian ghazal and playback singer known for his works in Hindi cinema, and Indian pop. He started his career with the release of a ghazal album titled ''Aahat'' in 1980 and subsequently rec ...

: Notable Ghazal and Bollywood Singer. *

Manhar Udhas Manhar Udhas is a Hindi and Gujarati language singer and Bollywood playback singer. Early life Manhar Udhas is the eldest son of Keshubhai Udhas and Jituben Udhas, and the elder brother of the singer Pankaj Udhas, who died on 26 February in 20 ...

: Notable Ghazal and Bollywood Singer. * Niranjan Shah: Former Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) *

Vijay Rupani Vijay Ramniklal Rupani (2 August 1956 – 12 June 2025) was an Indian politician who served as the chief minister of Gujarat from 2016 to 2021. He was a representative in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly for the Rajkot West constituency from ...

: Gujarat State Chief Minister * Ramesh Mehta: Gujarati film comedian *

Hemu Gadhavi Hemu Gadhavi, also spelled Hemu Gadhvi, (4 September 1929 – 20 August 1965) was a Gujarati people, Gujarati singer, songwriter, composer, playwright, and actor. He was an exponent of folk-music of Saurashtra (region), Saurashtra. Early life ...

: Famous folk Singer

Notes

External links

Rajkot district collectorate website

Rajkot RTO
* {{Authority control Districts of Gujarat