.$ILĄSPUR DISTRICT aga
rgoi. There are 387 villages and three towns, the largest of which are
CHANDAUS! (population, 25,711) and Bilā,ri (4,766), the tahsil head
quarters. The demand for land revenue in 1903-4 was Rs. 3,38,000,
and for cesses Rs. 57,ooo. The density of population, 650 persons
per square mile, is considerably above the District average. Most of
the tahsil is a fertile level plain, richly wooded, and requiring artificial
irrigation more than any other portion of the District. The Gangan
forms part of the northern boundary, and the Aril and Sot cross the
centre and southern portions. Sugar-cane is the most profitable
crop, btu. wheat covers the largest area. In 1902-3 the area under
cultivation was 279 square miles, of which 34 were irrigated, mostly
from wells.
Bilāspur District'.-District in the Chhattisgarh :Division of the
Central Provinces, lying between 21° 37' and 23° 7' N. and 8r° 12'and
83° 4o' E., with an area of 7,602 square miles. The District occupies
the northern portion of the Chhattisgarh plain or upper. basin of the
Mahanadi. It is bounded on the south by the open plains of. Raipur;
-and on the east and south-east by the broken country comprised in the
Raigarh and Sarangdrh States, which divides the Chhattisgarh and
Sambalpur plains. To the north and west the lowlands are hemmed in
by the hills constituting the eastern outer wall of the
Sātpurā,s, known locally as the Maikala range. The physical
area of the District was 8,341 square miles up to aspects.
1905, and it ranked third in the Province in point of size. A large part
of it is held on zaminddri tenure. The rugged peaks and dense forests,
which alternating with small elevated plateaux stretch along the north
of the District, and are divided among a number of zaminddri estates,
cover about 2,000 square miles, or 24 per cent. of the total area. South
of these is an open undulating plain closely cultivated, and in the
western portion wholly denuded of trees, which contains the majority of
1 In 1906 the constitution of Bilāspur District was entirely altered by the formation
of the new Drug District, to which a tract in the west of the Mungell tahsil, with an
area of 363 square miles and a population of 83,650 persons, was transferred. At the
same time part of the District lying south of the Mahdnadf and the Tarengā estate,
south of the Seonāth, were transferred to Raipur District, this area amounting to
706 square miles with a population of 99,402 persons. On the transfer of Sambalpur
District to Bengal in 1905, the Cllandarpur-Padampur and Mālkhurdā estates, with
an area of 333 square miles and a population of 87,320 persons, were transferred
to Bilāspur. The area of the reconstituted Bilāspur District is 7,602 square miles,
and the population of this area in rgol was 917,240 persons, compared with 1,045,096
in 18gr. The density was 121 persons per square mile. The District contains three
towns-BILĄSPUR, RATANPUR, and MUNGEM-and 3,258 inhabited villages. It
includes to zananddri estates, with a total area of 4,236 square miles, of which
2,668 are forest. The approximate land revenue in igo2-3 on the area now constituting
the District was 394 lakhs. This article refers almost throughout to Bilāspur
District as it stood before its reconstitution.
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