CACHAR or KACHAR, a district of British India, in the province of Assam. It occupies the upper basin of the Surma or Barak river, and is bounded on three sides by lofty hills. Its area is 3,654 sq. miles. Pop. (1921) 527,228. It is divided nat urally between the plain and hills. The scenery is beautiful, the hills generally rising steeply and being clothed with forests, while the plain is relieved of monotony by small isolated undulations and by its rich vegetation. The Surma is the chief river, and its prin cipal tributaries from the north are the Jiri and Jatinga, and from the south the Sonai and Dhaleswari. Several extensive fens, notably that of Chatla, which become lakes in time of flood, are characteristic of the plain. This is alluvial and bears heavy crops of rice, next to which in importance is tea. The industry con nected with the latter crop employs large numbers ; the tea gar den population was 137,733 in 1921, when there were S9,000ac. under tea, with an output of nearly 21 million pounds. An oil field at Badarpur is worked by the Burma Oil company; over four and one-quarter million gallons of crude oil were extracted in 1925. Manufacturing industries are otherwise slight. Reserved forests extend over nearly 1,200 sq. miles. Elephants abound in the North Cachar hills. The Assam-Bengal railway serves the district, including the headquarters town of Silchar. The plain is the most thickly-populated part of the district ; in the North Cachar hills the population is sparse (16 per sq. mile). The dis trict takes its name from the former rulers of the Kachari tribe, who settled here early in the 18th century. About the close of that century the Burmans threatened to expel the Kachari rajah and annex his territory; the British, however, intervened to pre vent this, and on the death of the last rajah without heir, in 183o, they obtained the territory under treaty. A separate principality, which had been established in the North Cachar hills earlier in the century by a servant of the rajah, was taken over by the British in 1854, owing to the misconduct of its rulers. The south ern part of the district was raided several times in the 19th cen tury by the turbulent Lushai.