JHELUM or JEHLAM, a town and district of British India, in the Punjab. The town is situated on the right bank of the river Jhelum, here crossed by a bridge of the North-Western railway, 103 M. N. of Lahore. Pop. (1931), 23,499. It is a mod em town with river and railway trade (principally in timber from Kashmir), boat-building and cantonments.
The DISTRICT OF JHELUM stretches from the river Jhelum almost to the Indus. Area 2,773 sq.m. Pop. (1931), 541,076. Salt is quarried at the Mayo mine in the Salt Range. There are two coal-mines from which the North-western railway obtains part of its supply of coal. The chief centre of the salt trade is Pind Dadan Khan (pop. 9,919). The river Jhelum is navigable throughout the district. The backbone of the district is formed by the Salt Range, a treble line of parallel hills running in three long forks from east to west throughout its whole breadth. The range rises in bold precipices, broken by gorges, clothed with brushwood and traversed by streams which are at first pure, but soon become impregnated with the saline matter over which they pass. Between the line of hills lies a picturesque table-land, in which the beautiful little lake of Kallar Kahar nestles amongst the minor ridges. North of the Salt Range, the country extends upwards in an elevated plateau, diversified by countless ravines and fissures, until it loses itself in tangled masses of Rawalpindi mountains.
The history of the district dates back to the semi-mythical period of the Mahabharata. Hindu tradition represents the Salt Range as the refuge of the five Pandava brethren during the period of their exile, and every salient point in its scenery is con nected with some legend of the national heroes. Modern research has fixed the site of the conflict between Alexander and Porus as within Jhelum district, although the exact point at which Alex ander effected the passage of the Jhelum (or Hydaspes) is dis puted. Af ter this event, we have little information with regard to the condition of the district until the Mohammedan conquest. During the flourishing period of the Mogul dynasty, the Ghakkar chieftains were prosperous and loyal vassals of the house of Babur ; but after the collapse of the Delhi Empire Jhelum fell, like its neighbours, under the sway of the Sikhs. In 1849 the district passed, with the rest of the Sikh territories, into the hands of the British. The population is a martial one and during the World War 38.7% of the males of military age were mobilized.