ETAH, a town and district of British India, in the Agra division of the United Provinces. The town is situated on the Grand Trunk road. Pop. (1931) 11,473. The district has an area of 1,718 sq.m. The district consists for the most part of an elevated alluvial plateau, dipping down on its eastern slope into the valley of the Ganges. The uplands are irrigated by the Ganges canal. Between the modern bed of the Ganges and its ancient channel lies a belt of fertile land, covered with a rich deposit of silt, and abundantly supplied with natural moisture. A long line of swamps and hollows still marks the former course of the river; and above it rises abruptly the original cliff which now forms the terrace of the upland plain. The neighbourhood of Etah is men tioned by Hsiian Tsang, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim of the 7th century A.D., as rich in temples and monasteries. With the rest of upper India it passed under the sway of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017, and thenceforth followed the fortunes of the Mohammedan empire. At the end of the i8th century it formed part of the territory over which the wazir of Oudh had made himself ruler, and it came into the possession of the British government in 1801, under the treaty of Lucknow. In 1931 the population was 860,478. There are cotton gins and presses at Kasganj (pop. 23,100) and Soron (pop. 12,200), which are the two chief trading centres of the district.