SATARA, a town and district of British India, in the Central division of Bombay, io m. from Satara Road station on the Madras and Southern Mahratta railway. The name is derived from the "seventeen" walls, towers and gates which the fort was supposed to possess. The town is 2,32o ft. above sea-level, near the confluence of the rivers Kistna and Vena, 56 m. S. of Poona. Pop. (1931) 26,379.
The DISTRICT OF SATARA has an area of 5,053 sq.m. It contains two hill systems, the Sahyadri, or main range of the Western Ghats, and the Mahadeo range and its offshoots. The former runs through the district from north to south, and the latter from east to south-east. The Mahadeo hills are bold, presenting bare scarps of black rock. There are two river systems—the Bhima system in a small part of the north and north-east, and the Kistna system throughout the rest of the district. The hill forests have a large store of timber and firewood. The soil is a black loamy clay containing carbonate of lime, which is very fertile when well watered. Satara contains some important irrigation works, including the Kistna canal. In some of the western parts of the district the average annual rainfall exceeds 200 in.; but on the eastern side water is scanty. The population in 1931 was 1,179,712. The principal crops are millet, pulse, oil-seeds and
sugar-cane. The only manufactures are cotton cloth, blankets and brass-ware. The district is traversed from north to south by the Madras and Southern Mahratta railway, passing 10 m. from Satara town. The Satara agency comprises the two feudatory states of Phaltan and Aundh (q.v.).
On the overthrow of the Jadhav dynasty in 1312 the district passed to the Mohammedan power, which was consolidated in the reign of the Bahmani kings. On the decline of the Bahmanis towards the end of the 15th century the Bijapur kings finally asserted themselves, and under these kings the Mahrattas arose and laid the foundation of an independent kingdom with Satara as its capital. The Peshwas, who removed the capital to Poona and degraded the raja, got the ascendancy in the 18th century, but after the war of 1817 the British restored the raja, and assigned to him the principality of Satara, with an area much larger than the present district. In consequence of political in trigues he was deposed in 1839, and his brother, who took his place, died without male heirs in 1848, when the state was re sumed by the British government.