RAIPUR  , a

town and district of British India, in the Chhattisgarh division of the Central Provinces . The town is 994 ft. above sea-level, 188 m . E. of Nagpur; and has a station on the Bengal-Nagpur railway . Pop . (1901) 32,114 . There are ruins of an immense fort, with many tanks and old temples . It has a German mission and a government high school . The Rajkumar college, for the education of the sons of the chiefs of Chhattisgarh, was transferred here from Jubbulpore in 1894 . The DISTRICT OF RAIPUR has an area of 9831 sq. m . It spreads over a vast plateau closed in by ranges of hills branching from the great Vindhyan chain . It is drained by the Seonath and the Mahanadi rivers . Geologically the country consists in the hilly tracts of gneiss and quartzite; the sandstone rocks in the west are intersected with trap dykes .

Iron ore is abundant, and red ochre of high repute is found . In the interior the principal strata are a soft sandstone slate (covered generally by a layer of laterite gravel) and blue limestone, which crops out in numerous places on the surface and is invariably found in the beds of the rivers . Throughout the plains the soil is generally fertile . The climate is generally good; the mean temperature is 78° F., and the annual rainfall averages 55 in . The population on the present area in 1901 was 1,096,858, showing a decrease of 2.5% in the decade . The principal crop is rice . There are manufactures of cotton goods and brassware . The north-west corner of the district is crossed by the main line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway, and a narrow-gauge branch runs from Raipur town due south . The district suffered severely from famine in 1896-97, and again in 1899-1900 . Raipur was governed by a branch of the Haihaivansi dynasty of Ratanpur for many centuries until their deposition by the Mahrattas in 1750 . The country was then already in a condition of decay, and soon afterwards it relapsed into absolute anarchy . In 1818 it was taken under British superintendence and made rapid progress .

It

fell with the rest of the Nagpur dominions to the British government in 1854 . In 1906 its area was reduced by the formation of the new district of Drug .