CIRCAR, an Indian term applied to the component parts of a subah, or province, each of which is administered by a deputy governor. In English it is principally employed in the name of the Northern Circars, used to designate a now obsolete division of the Madras presidency, which consisted of a narrow slip of territory lying along the western side of the bay of Bengal from 15° 4o' to 2o° 17' N. lat. These Northern Circars were five in number, Chicacole, Rajahmundry, Ellore, Kondapalli and Guntur, and their total area was about 30,00o sq. miles.
The district corresponds in the main to the modern districts of Kistna, Godavari, Vizagapatam, Ganjam and a part of Nel lore. It was first invaded by the Mohammedans in 1471 and con quered by them in the following century, but they appear to have acquired only an imperfect possession of the country, as it was again wrested from the Hindu princes of Orissa about the year 1571. In 1687 the Circars were added, along with the empire of Hyderabad, to the empire of Aurangzeb. In 1759, by the conquest of Masulipatam, the dominion of the maritime provinces on both sides, from the river Gundlakamma to the Chilka lake, was trans ferred from the French to the British. But the latter left them under the administration of the nizam, with the exception of the town and fortress of Masulipatam, which were retained by the English East India company. In 1765 Lord Clive obtained from the Mogul emperor Shah Alam a grant of the five Circars. Here upon the fort of Kondapalli was seized by the British, and in 1766 a treaty of alliance was signed with Nizam Ali, by which the com pany, in return for the grant of the Circars, undertook to main tain troops for the nizam's assistance. By a second treaty, signed in 1768, the nizam acknowledged the validity of Shah Alam's grant and resigned the Circars to the company, receiving as a mark of friendship an annuity of £So,000. Guntur, as the personal estate of the nizam's brother, was excepted during his lifetime under both treaties. He died in 1782, but it was not till 1788 that Guntur came under British administration. In 1823, the claims of the nizam over the Northern Circars were bought out by the company, and they became a British possession.