MANBHUM, a district of British India, in the Chota Nagpur division of Behar and Orissa. Area, 4,095 sq.m. ; pop. (1931), 1,810,890. Manbhum district forms the first step of a gradual descent from the table-land of Chota Nagpur to the delta of lower Bengal. In the northern and eastern portions the country is open, and consists of a series of rolling downs dotted here and there with isolated conical hills. In the western and southern tracts the country is more broken and the scenery much more picturesque. The principal hills are Dalma ft.), the crown ing peak of a range of the same name ; Gangabari or Gajburu (2,220 ft.), the highest peak of the Baghmundi range; and Pachet (1,600 ft.), on which stands the old fort of the rajahs of Pachet. The hills are covered with dense jungle. The chief river is the Kasai, which flows through the district from north-west, to south-east into Midnapore. A large proportion of the popula tion is of aboriginal descent, the chief tribes being the Santals, the Bhumij and Bauris; the latter two have adopted Hindu customs and are fast becoming Hindus in religion.
Containing the Jharia coal-field and part of the Raniganj coal field, which lies mainly in Bengal, Manbhum is the chief district in Behar and Orissa. The growth of the industry is com
paratively recent, for the output in 1894 was only 127,00o tons. In that year the railway was opened from Barakar to Dhanbad, and in the present century coal mining has developed rapidly, especially since the Bengal-Nagpur railway was extended to the Jharia coal-field in 1904. In 1921 there were 371 mines in this field, with an output of ten million tons—over half the output of India. The Raniganj coal-field (excluding the Bengal portion) had in the same year 110 coal-fields and produced a little under one million tons. The public health of the coal-fields, and indeed of the whole Dhanbad sub-division and of a small area to the south, with a total area of goo sq.m., and a population of half-a million, is in charge of the Mines Board of Health, which has done admirable work.
Besides the administrative headquarters, Purulia (pop. which is at the junction of the narrow gauge line to Ranchi, the only town is Dhanbad (16,356), the headquarters of a sub division and a railway settlement.