BALASORE, a town and district of British India, in the Orissa division of Behar and Orissa. The town is the administra tive headquarters of the district, and is situated on the right bank of the river Burabalang, about 7m. from the sea-coast as the crow flies and 16m. by the river. Pop. 17,843. The British first settled here in 1633, and established a factory in 1642 ; they were followed by the Dutch, Danes and French. The French still retain a plot of land called a loge in the town. After the outbreak of hos tilities with the Moghul government Balasore was captured by Job Charnock in 1687 and again next year by Capt. Heath. In the 18th century Balasore rapidly declined in importance, on account of the silting-up of the river mouth.
The district forms a strip of alluvial land between the hills and the sea, varying from about 9 to 34m. in breadth. Area, square miles. Population (1931) 990,600. The district naturally divides itself into three well defined tracts—(1) The salt tract, along the coast; (2) The arable tract, or rice country; and (3) The submontane tract, or jungle lands. The salt tract which is only a few miles broad, rises towards the beach into sandy ridges, from so to 8oft. high. Inland, it spreads out into prairies of coarse long grass and scrub jungle, with patches of rice cultivation. Salt used to be manufactured here by evaporation, but the industry is now extinct. The arable tract lies beyond the salt lands and em braces the chief part of the district. It is a long dead-level of rice fields, with depressions near the river-banks. The submontane tract is an undulating country with a red soil, broken up into ravines along the foot of the hills. Large tracts are covered with sal jungle, which nowhere, however, attains to any great height.
Balasore district is watered by six distinct river systems : those of the Subarnarekha, the Panchpora, the Burabalang, the Jamka, the Kansbans and the Dhamra. The main crop is rice, which is grown on nine-tenths of the cultivated area. The district is tra versed throughout its entire length by the Bengal-Nagpur and High Level Coast canals, and also by the railway from Calcutta to Madras. The only port is Chandbali, over tom. up the river Dhamra, which is visited regularly by small coasting steamers.