GODAVARI, district, British India, in the north-east of the Madras presidency. Part was transferred to Kistna district in 1908. Its present area is 6,22o sq.m., mainly east of the Goda vari river, including the entire delta, with a long narrow strip extending up its valley. Inland low hills, steep and forest-clad, enclose the valley. The delta is flat, and the north-eastern part known as the Agency tract and occupied by spurs of the eastern Ghats, has recently been formed into a separate division with part of Ganjam and Vizagapatam. The coast is low, sandy and swampy, so that vessels must lie 7 m. from Cocanada, the chief port. The Sabari is the principal tributary of the Godavari within the district. The Godavari often rises in destructive floods. The population (including the Agency tract) in 1931 was 1,920,582. The chief towns are Cocanada, the administrative headquarters, and Rajahmundry, the old capital. The population is principally occupied in agriculture, the principal crops being rice, other food grains, pulse, oil seeds, tobacco and sugar. A number of rice-clean ing mills have been established. Sugar is refined, and fish is cured. The district is traversed by the main line of the East Coast railway, with a branch to Cocanada.
The Godavari district formed part of the Andhra division of Dravida, the north-west portion being subject to the Orissa kings, and the south-western belonging to the Vengi kingdom. In it various chiefs fought for independence with varying success till the beginning of the 16th century, when the whole country may be said to have passed under Mohammedan power. At the con clusion of the struggle with the French in the Carnatic, Goda vari with the Northern Circars was conquered by the English, and finally ceded in 1765.