KURNOOL, town and district, British India, in the Madras presidency. The town is built on a rocky soil at the junction of the Hindri and Tungabhadra rivers at a branch-railway terminus. The old Hindu fort was levelled in 1865, with the exception of a gate, some bastions, etc. The town is a trade centre, cotton cloth and carpets are manufactured. There are industrial and training schools. Pop. (1931) 35.314, of whom half are Mohammedans.
The District of Kurnool has an area of 7,580 sq.m. ; pop. (1930, 1,024,961. Two long mountain ranges, the Nallamalais (highest point 3,149 ft.) and the Yellamalais, extend in parallel lines, north and south, through its centre. The Yellamalai (highest point about 2,000 ft.) is a low range, generally flat-topped with scarped sides. Several low ridges run parallel to the Nallamalais, broken here and there by gorges, with mountain streams, several of which were dammed across to form irrigation tanks under native rule.
The principal rivers are the Tungabhadra and Kistna, which bound the district on the north. The Kistna here flows chiefly through
uninhabited jungles, sometimes in long smooth reaches, with inter vening shingly rapids. The Bhavanasi rises on the Nallamalais, and falls into the Kistna at Sungameswaram, a place of pilgrimage. During the i8th century Kurnool formed the jagir of a semi-inde pendent Pathan nawab, whose descendant was dispossessed by the British government for treason in 1838. The principal crops are millets, cotton, pulses, oil-seeds, and rice, with a little indigo and tobacco. Many minerals occur, and barytes, iron and steatite are worked. Kurnool suffers severely in time of drought. The canal of the Madras Irrigation Company (taken over by government in 1882) starts from the Tungabhadra river near Kurnool town. Apart from the weaving of coarse cotton cloth, the chief industrial establishments are cotton presses, an oil-mill, and saltpetre refin eries. The district is served by the Madras and Southern Mahratta railway.