MAINPURI, a town and district of British India, in the Agra division of the United Provinces. The town (pop. [1931], 16,483) consists of two separate portions, Mainpuri proper and Mukhamganj. Holkar plundered and burned part of the town in 1804, but was repulsed by the local militia. Since the British occupation the population has rapidly increased and many im provements have been carried out. The Agra branch of the Grand Trunk road runs through the town, forming a wide street lined on both sides by shops, which constitute the principal bazaar. Mainpuri has a speciality in the production of carved wooden articles inlaid with brass wire. The American Presbyterian mis sion manages a high school.
The DISTRICT OF MAINPURI lies in the central Doab. Area, 1674 sq.m. Pop. (1931), It consists of an almost un broken plain wooded throughout with mango groves, and isolated clumps of bdbul trees occasionally relieve the bareness of its saline user plains. On the south-western boundary the Jumna flows in a deep alluvial bed, sometimes sweeping close to the high banks which overhang its valley, and elsewhere leaving room for a narrow strip of fertile soil between the river and the upland plain. The district is watered by two branches of the Ganges
canal.
Mainpuri anciently formed part of the great kingdom of Kanauj, and after the fall of that famous state it was divided into a number of petty principalities, of which Rapri and Bhon gaon were the chief. In 1194 Rapri was made the seat of a Muslim governor. Mainpuri fell to the Moguls on Baber's in vasion in 1526, passed, towards the end of the 18th century, into the power of the Mahrattas, and finally became a portion of the province of Oudh. When this part of the country was ceded to the British, in 1801, Mainpuri town became the headquarters of the extensive district of Etawah, which was in 1856 reduced by the formation of Etah and Mainpuri into separate collectorates.