Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Twenty-Four Pargánas

TWENTY-FOUR PARGÁNAS, the metropolitan district of the lieutenant-governorship of Bengal, India, takes its name from the territory originally ceded to the East India Company, which contained twenty-four parganas or sub-districts. The district lies between 21° 55′ 20″ and 22° 57′ 32″ N. lat. and 88° 6′ 45″ and 88° 20′ 51″ E. long. It has an area of 2124 square miles, and is bounded on the north by Nadiya, on the north-east by Jessore, on the south and south-east by the Sundarbans, and on the west by the river Hugli (Hooghly). The country consists for the most part of a vast alluvial plain within the delta of the Ganges, and is everywhere watered by numerous rivers, all branches of the Hugli. In the northern portion the soil is very rich, but the southern or seaboard part consists of the network of swamps and inland channels known as the Sundarbans. The Hugli and six other streams are navigable by the largest boats throughout the year. The district is well supplied with canals, the most important being Tolly's Nala (10 miles long), which connects the Hugli with the Bidyadhari. The Twenty-Four Parganas was once famous for its sport, but owing to the extension of cultivation game is now scarce. Tigers are seldom met with; leopards are more numerous; there are several varieties of deer. The district has many roads, and is traversed by the Eastern Bengal Railway and the Calcutta and South-Eastern State Railway.

In 1881 the population of the district, exclusive of Calcutta, numbered 1,869,859 (males 975,430, females 894,429), embracing 1,153,040 Hindus, 701,306 Mohammedans, and 13,976 Christians. The ten following municipalities had each a population of upwards of 10,000 South Suburban, 51,658; Agarpara, 30,317; Barangar, 29,982; Naihati, 21,533; Xawabganj, 17,702; Basurhat, 14,843; South Dum Durn, 14,108; Baduria, 12,981; Rajpore, 10,576; and Barasat, 10,533. The administrative headquarters of the district are at Alipur, a southern suburb of Calcutta. Rice forms the staple crop of the district; other crops are pulses, oil seeds, sugar-cane, tobacco, &c. Its principal exports are rice, sugar, pan leaf, fish, pottery, &c.; the imports comprise pulses of all kinds, oil-seeds, spices, turmeric, chillies, cloth, cotton, &c. The objects of the rural manufactures are sugar, cotton curtains, brass and iron work, horn sticks, and cotton and tasar silk cloth. The gross revenue of the district in 1885-86 amounted to 338,895, of which the land-tax contributed 155,181. The district was ceded to the East India Company by treaty by the nawab naziin of Bengal in 1757. Since then several changes have been made in its boundaries, the latest in 1863.