Gonda district is an administrative district in theAwadh region of the state ofUttar Pradesh, India. The district headquarters is located at the city ofGonda, which also serves as the administrative centre of theDevipatan division. The district covers an area of 4,003 km2 (1,546 sq mi).[2]
The area of present-day Gonda district lay within the ancient kingdom ofKosala, one of the sixteenMahajanapadas of early India, withAyodhya andShravasti as major centres.[3][4] Archaeological remains associated with early Buddhism have been discovered in the region, particularly around Shravasti.[5][6][unreliable source?]
In the early medieval era, the region was ruled by theKalachuris of Sarayupara (c. 8th–11th centuries), whose domain along the Sarayu (Ghaghara) included parts of Bahraich and Gonda.[7] From the 12th century onward, Gonda was gradually absorbed into larger north Indian polities and became part of the administrative apparatus of theAwadh region under successive sultanates and later theMughal Empire.[8]
Gonda was originally part of theNizamat ofGorakhpur. After the cession of Gorakhpur to the British in 1801 under a treaty with the Nawab of Oudh, Gonda was united administratively withBahraich.[5][9]
When Awadh was annexed in 1856 by the British, Gonda was constituted as a separate district.[5][10] On 7 January 1875, a boundary settlement ceded the tract betweenBaghaura Tal and theArrah River toNepal.[5][11]
The village ofChhapaiya in Gonda district is widely recognized as the birthplace ofSwaminarayan (born Ghanshyam Pande in 1781).[12][13] This is an established fact in local government and pilgrimage sources, though academic historical research on the early life of Swaminarayan is limited.
In independent India, the district came into the national spotlight following the1982 Gonda Encounter, in which 13 persons were killed in a staged police encounter. In 2013, a special CBI court sentenced three policemen to death and five others to life imprisonment for their roles in the case.[16][17]
Agriculture and the sugar industry are the mainstays of the economy of Gonda district. Several sugar mills are located in and around the district:
The Balrampur Chini Mills Limited unit at Babhnan is operational. It also hosts a molasses-based distillery, commissioned with a capacity of 60 kL/day in 2004.[18][19]
The Balrampur Chini Mills Limited unit at Mankapur is operational.[20]
The Sarju Sahkari Chini Mills Ltd. at Belrayan is also operational.[21]
The Kisan Sahkari Chini Mills Ltd. at Gonda remains of uncertain operational status.[citation needed]
In addition to sugar processing, alcohol production through molasses-based distilleries contributes to the industrial economy of the district.
In 2006, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj identified Gonda as one of India's 250 "most backward districts" (out of a total of 640).[22] It was also one of 35 districts in Uttar Pradesh that received allocations under the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF).[23]
The BRGF programme was delinked from the central budget beginning in financial year 2015–16, pursuant to the implementation of the Fourteenth Finance Commission’s recommendations of enhanced state revenue share.[24] Subsequently, Gonda district has been included in the Government of India’s Aspirational Districts Programme under the aegis of NITI Aayog, which seeks to accelerate development across health, education, agriculture, financial inclusion, and infrastructure indicators.[24]
According to the2011 census Gonda district has apopulation of 3,433,919,[39] roughly equal to the nation ofPanama[40] or the US state ofConnecticut.[41] This gives it a ranking of 95th in India (out of a total of640).[39] The total number of literates in the district is 1,679,99 which constitute 48.9% of the total population. Population in the age range of 0 to 6 years was 572,386. The effective literacy (population 7 years and above) was 58.7%.[39] The district has a population density of 857 inhabitants per square kilometre (2,220/sq mi).[39] Itspopulation growth rate over the decade 2001-2011 was 24.17%,[39] higher than the average of Uttar Pradesh (20.09%). Gonda has asex ratio of 921females for every 1000 males,[39] and a sex ratio among children 0–6 years old of 926, both higher than the state average (908 and 899 respectively). 6.55% of the population lives in urban areas. Scheduled Castes made up 15.49% of the population.[39]
The human development index of the Gonda district is very low.[42]
The official language of the district isHindi.[43]
At the time of the2011 Census of India, 81.03% of the population in the district reportedHindi as their mother tongue, 16.04% reportedAwadhi, and 2.68% reportedUrdu.[44][45]
Awadhi is traditionally the dominant spoken language of the region, as Gonda lies within the cultural area ofAwadh.[46] Although the 2011 Census records over four-fifths of the population as speaking Hindi, this figure includes regional varieties such as Awadhi, which 16.04% explicitly identified. Linguists note that Awadhi continues to be widely used in daily communication, folk songs, oral traditions, and local literature, while standard Hindi serves as the formal and administrative language.[47]
Apart from Hindi, languages spoken in the district includeAwadhi, a variety of theHindi continuum spoken by over 38 million people in theAwadh region,[48] as well asBhojpuri andEnglish, though their numbers in the district are too small to be reported separately in the Census.[44]
The effectiveliteracy rate (7+) is 58.71%, the state average (69.72%).[39][51] The government of India has created a special scheme for underdeveloped districts through the "Backward Region Grant Fund". Gonda is one of the recipients of this fund.[52]
Gonda has 15 hospitals, 27Ayurvedic hospitals, 11Homeopathic hospitals and 2Unani hospitals, in addition to 66 Government Primary Health Centres.Gonda is one of the districts in the list of top 100 districts in order of Infant Mortality Rate in 2011 census data. It also comes in the top 57 districts with the highest maternal mortality rate[55]
Gonda has been listed as cleanestNagar Palika in entire Uttar Pradesh according to the Swachhta Sarvekshan 2022 overturning its last position in the country as per the 2017 survey.[56][57]
Patanjali, the Sanskrit author Gonardiya is generally identified with Patanjali, the epithet denotes someone from Gonarda, which has been identified by some with Gonda.[58]
^Masica, Colin P. (1991).The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge University Press. pp. 27–28.ISBN978-0-521-29944-2.
^M. Paul Lewis, ed. (2009)."Awadhi: A language of India".Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved3 October 2025.
India
