DHARWAR, town and district, British India, in the south ern division of Bombay. The town (pop. in 1931, 41,671) is a railway centre, formerly headquarters of the Southern Mahratta railway, now amalgamated with the Madras railway. It contains a jail for juvenile criminals, a mental hospital, a college and two training colleges, and is a centre of the Basle mission.
The district of Dharwar has an area of 4,606 sq. miles. In the north and north-east are plains of black soil, favourable to cotton growing ; in the south and west are ranges of low hills, with flat fertile valleys between them. The whole district lies high and has no large rivers. In 1931 the population was 1,10 2,67 7. The prin cipal products are millets, pulse, cotton and timber. The centres of the cotton trade are Hubli and Gadag, junctions on the Madras and Southern Mahratta railway, which traverses the district in several directions.
The early history of the territory comprised within the dis trict of Dharwar has been to a certain extent reconstructed from the inscription slabs and memorial stones which abound there. From these it is clear that the country fell in turn under the sway of the various dynasties that ruled in the Deccan, memorials of the Chalukyan dynasty, whether temples or inscriptions, being especially abundant. In the i4th century the district was first overrun by the Mohammedans, after which it was annexed to the newly established Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, an official of which named Dhar Rao, according to local tradition building the fort at Dharwar town in 1403. After the defeat of the king of Vijayanagar at Talikot (1565), Dharwar was for a few years practically independent under its Hindu governor; but in 1573 the fort was captured by the sultan of Bijapur, and Dharwar was annexed to his dominions. In 1864 the fort was taken by the emperor Aurangzeb, and Dharwar, on the break-up of the Mogul empire, fell under the sway of the peshwa of Poona. In 1764 the province was overrun by Hyder Ali of Mysore, who in 1778 captured the fort of Dharwar. This was retaken in 1791 by the Mahrattas. On the final overthrow of the peshwa in 1817 Dharwar was incorporated with the territory of the East India company.