BANDA, a town and district of British India, in the Jhansi division of the United Provinces. The town is near the right bank of the river Ken, 95m. S.W. of Allahabad. The population in was 22,415.
The district contains an area of 2,864 sq. miles. Irregular up lands with outcrops of rock intermingle with marshy lowlands, fre quently under water in the rainy season. The Jumna skirts the district for 125m., and has a fringe of destructive and extending ravines. To the south-east the Vindhya chain of hills begins in a low range not above 5ooft. in height, forming a natural boundary of the district in that direction. In 1931 the population. was 625, 7 71. The black soil of the district yields crops of millet, other food-grains, pulse, rice, cotton and oil-seeds; but the land is arid, rainfall precarious and serious drought recurring. The peasantry are for the most part impoverished and indebted.
Banda has often been the battle-ground of successive races who have struggled for the sovereignty of India. Kalinjar town, then the capital was unsuccessfully besieged by Mahmud of Ghazni in A.D. 1023; in 1196 it was taken by Kutabud-din. the general of Mohammed Ghori; in 1545 by Sher Shah, who, how ever, fell mortally wounded in the assault. About the year 1735 the rajah of Kalinjar's territory, including the present district of Banda, was bequeathed to Baji Rao, the Mahratta peshwa; and from the Mahrattas it passed by the treaties of 1802-1803 to the East India company.