1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Muzaffarpur

MUZAFFARPUR, a town and district of British India, in the Patna division of Bengal. The town is on the right bank of the Little Gandak river, and has a railway station. Pop. (1901), 45,617. The town is well laid out, and is an important centre of trade, being on the direct route from Patna to Nepal. It is the headquarters of the Behar Light Horse volunteer corps and has a college established in 1899.

The District of Muzaffarpur has an area of 3035 sq. m. It was formed in January 1875 out of the great district of Tirhoot, which up to that time was the largest and most populous district of Lower Bengal. The district is an alluvial plain between the Ganges and the Great Gandak, the Baghmat and Little Gandak being the principal rivers within it. South of the Little Gandak the land is somewhat elevated, with depressions containing lakes toward the south-east. North of the Baghmat the land is lower and marshy, but is traversed by elevated dry ridges. The tract between the two rivers is lowest of all and liable to floods; Pop. (1901), 2,754,790, showing an increase of 1·5% in the decade. Average density, 914 per sq. m., being exceeded in all India only by the neighbouring district of Saran. Indigo (superseded to some extent, owing to the fall in price, by sugar) and opium are largely grown. Rice is the chief grain crop, and cloth, carpets and pottery are manufactured. The district is traversed in several directions by the Tirhoot system of the Bengal and North-Western railway. It suffered from drought in 1873–1874, and again in 1897–1898.

See Muzaffarpur District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1907).