Dang is a district in the southeastern part of the 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 ...

. The administrative headquarters of the district are located in

Ahwa Ahwa is the headquarters of Dang District in the state of Gujarat, in India. It is situated about 1800 feet (549 m) above the sea level. The whole district, inhabited by the tribal people, is a hilly area covered with thick forest. Venomous snak ...

. Dang has 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 1,764 km² and 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 228,291 (as of 2011). As of 2011, it is the least populous of Gujarat's 33 districts. As per the Planning Commission, Dang is one of the most economically distressed districts out of 640 districts in India. 94% of the population belongs to one of the scheduled tribes. The five Kings of Dangs are the only hereditary royals in India whose titles are currently recognized by the government owing to an agreement between 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 ...

and the Dang kings in 1842.

Etymology

The origin of the name of the Dang is uncertain. In common parlance the word 'dang' means a hilly village. There is another connotation of the word 'dang' which means

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

(a place of bamboo). The name is also associated with

Hindu mythology Hindu mythology refers to the collection of myths associated with Hinduism, derived from various Hindu texts and traditions. These myths are found in sacred texts such as the Vedas, the Itihasas (the ''Mahabharata'' and the ''Ramayan ...

. It is related to the

Dandakaranya Dandakaranya (), also rendered Dandaka (, IAST: ), is a historical region and the name of a forest mentioned in the ancient Indian epic ''Ramayana''. It covers about of land, which includes the Abujhmar Hills in the west and borders the East ...

of the

Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

. It is said that during the exile,

Rama Rama (; , , ) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the seventh and one of the most popular avatars of Vishnu. In Rama-centric Hindu traditions, he is considered the Supreme Being. Also considered as the ideal man (''maryāda' ...

passed through this area on his way to Nashik.

Kings of Dang

Surat Agency with all princely states with labels British India 1880-1933

The five Royal

Bhil Bhil or Bheel refer to the various Indigenous peoples, indigenous groups inhabiting western India, including parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and are also found in distant places such as Bengal and Tripura. Though they now speak the Bhili ...

Kings of Dangs are currently the only hereditary rulers in India. Before Independence several wars were fought between the five tribal kings of Dang and the

Company A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether Natural person, natural, Juridical person, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members ...

. According to the history of Dang, the biggest war to took place at 'Lashkaria Amba', in when the kings of all the five states joined to protect Dang from the British. The British were beaten and agreed to a compromise. As per the treaty signed in

1842 Events January–March * January 6– 13 – First Anglo-Afghan War – Massacre of Elphinstone's army (Battle of Gandamak): British East India Company troops are destroyed by Afghan forces on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad, Afghan ...

the Company allowed to use the forests and their natural products against which they had to pay around 3,000 silver coins to the five kings. Currently the kings receive a yearly political pension by the Government of India, which is the main source of their income. This payment is continued even though all privy purses for the Princely states of India were stopped in 1970 since the agreement was between then monarchy of Dangs and the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

, not

the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

. At the end of each fiscal year during

Holi Holi () is a major Hindu festival celebrated as the Festival of Colours, Love and Spring.The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) p. 874 "Holi /'həʊli:/ noun a Hindu spring festival ...".Yudit Greenberg, Encyclopedia of Love in World ...

, the kings gather in Ahwa for a traditional royal ceremony, in their richly decorated buggies and bands with tribal dancers, to receive the payment as per the agreement of 1842. In ancient Indian Scriptures Dang is known as ''Danda Aranyaka'', meaning 'Bamboo forest'. Recently the Dangs Kings have urged the government to protect their depleting forest cover due to

illegal logging Illegal logging is the harvest, transportation, purchase, or sale of timber in violation of laws. The harvesting procedure itself may be illegal, including using corrupt means to gain access to forests; extraction without permission, or from a p ...

. The five kingdoms are Daher-Amala, Linga, Gadhvi, Vasurna and Pimpri.

Rulers

#''Linga'' - Raja Bhawarsinh #''Daher-Amala'' - Raja Tapatrao Anandrao Pawar #''Gadhvi'' - Raja Karan Singh Yashwantrao Pawar #''Vasurna'' - Raja Dhanrajsinh Chandrasinh Suryavanshi #''Pimpri'' - Raja Trikamrao Sahebrao Pawar

Dang States

Historically there were 14 Dang states in the region: * Amala * Avchar * Bilbari * Chinchli Gaded * Derbhavti * Gadvi * Jhari Gharkhadi * Kirli * Palasvihir * Pimpladevi * Pimpri * Shivbara * Vadhyawan * Vasurna

Demographics

According to the 2011 census, Dang district has a

of 228,291, roughly equal to the nation of

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

. This gives it a ranking of 587th 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 21.44%. Dang 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 1007

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

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 76.8%. 10.81% of the population lives in urban areas. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes make up 0.43% and 94.65% of the population respectively.

Language

At the time of the 2011 Census of India, 59.55% of the population in the district spoke Dangi, 32.53% Gujarati, 3.18% Gamit, 1.99%

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 1.21%

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.

Politics

Economy

In 2006 the

Ministry of Panchayati Raj The Ministry of Panchayati Raj () is a branch of the Government of India. The Ministry is in charge of the Panchayati Raj and Panchayati Raj Institutions. It was created in May 2004. The Ministry is headed by a minister of cabinet rank / Min ...

named Dang District as an economically distressed district, one of 250 out of a total of 640

districts 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 counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

. It is one of the six districts in Gujarat currently receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF).

Forest

Dang District has part of a forest that includes Purna Wildlife Sanctuary, which is shared between the districts of Dang and Tapi in Gujarat and Nandurbar District in

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

, Jhala, Y. V., Qureshi, Q., Sinha, P. R. (Eds.) (2011)
''Status of tigers, co-predators and prey in India, 2010.''
National Tiger Conservation Authority, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. TR 2011/003 pp-302 and Vansda National Park in

Navsari District Navsari is an administrative District (India), district in the state of Gujarat in India, with its headquarters at the city of Navsari. The district covers an area of 2,211 square kilometres and was formed in 1997 after Valsad district was split in ...

, which shares a continuous tract of forest with

Valsad district Valsad district (previously Bulsar district) is one of the 34 Districts of Gujarat, districts in the West India, Western Indian state of Gujarat. It is bound by Navsari district to the north, Nashik district of Maharashtra state to the east, and ...

. A rusty-spotted cat was sighted for the time in 1991 in

Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area in India's Gujarat state, located in the western Satpura Range south of the Narmada River and is large. It shares a common boundary with Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It encompasses m ...

. In

Purna : Purna is a town with a municipal council in the Parbhani district of Maharashtra, India. Geography Purna is located at . It has an average elevation of . Purna is situated in the Maharashtra state of India. Demographics India census, Purna ...

and Ratanmahal Wildlife Sanctuaries, eight bird species are considered locally extinct, including

Indian grey hornbill The Indian gray hornbill (''Ocyceros birostris'') is a common hornbill found on the Indian subcontinent. It is mostly arboreal and is commonly sighted in pairs. It has grey feathers all over the body with a light grey or dull white belly. The hor ...

jungle bush quail The jungle bush quail (''Perdicula asiatica'') is a species of quail in the family Phasianidae. It is native to the Indian subcontinent, where it is found in peninsular India and Sri Lanka. It has also been reported from Nepal but has not been se ...

, red spurfowl and large woodshrike. Also,

Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies and the nominate tiger subspecies. It ranks among the largest wild cats alive today. It is estimated to have been present in the Indian subcontinent since the Late ...

, Indian giant squirrel and

gaur The gaur (''Bos gaurus''; ) is a large bovine native to the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and has been listed as Vulnerable species, Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986. The global population was estimated at a maximum of 21,000 ...

are reportedly extinct in Gujarat.

Talukas

Subir Subir is a town in the Dang District of the southern part of Gujarat state in 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 ...

# Waghai #

Rivers of district

* Purna River * Ambika River * Gira River * Khapri River * Dhodad River

Places of interest

* Botanic Garden, Waghai - Large Government Ayurvedic Medicinal Garden (Botanical Garden) near Waghai * Gira Falls on Ambika River near Waghai * Hill stations: Saputara and Don * Gira Falls on Gira River at Girmal village * Rupgadh Fort * Shabri Dham and Pampa Sarovar at Subir

References

External links

*
Dang District Panchayat-Official web

Are there tigers in the Dangs?
* {{Gujarat Districts of Gujarat Dang district, India