SHAHABAD, a district of British India, in the Patna division of Bihar and Orissa; area, 4,372 sq.m.; pop. (1931) 1,993,489.
To the north is an alluvial flat constituting about three-fourths of the district, closely cultivated and thickly populated. The southern portion is occupied by the Kaimur hills, a branch of the great Vindhyan range. These hills consist of an undulating plateau largely covered with jungle, about Boo sq.m. in area; at Rohtas garh they attain a height of 1,490 ft. above sea-level. The chief rivers are the Ganges and the Son, which unite in the north eastern corner of Shahabad, and the Karamnasa, which divides it from the United Provinces. The chief crops are rice, millets, wheat, pulses, oilseeds, and sugar-cane. Shahabad is protected against drought by a system of canals which obtains its supply of water from the Son at Dehri, where a weir or anicut, 2 m. long, has been built across the broad bed of the river; the irrigated area averages about 500,00o acres. The district is traversed by the main
line of the East Indian railway, by the Grand Chord line which crosses the Son at Dehri-on-Son, and by two light railways, one connecting Arrah and Sasaram, the other Dehri and Rohtasgarh. The northern part of Shahabad is known as Bhojpur, which has given its name to a dialect of the Bihari language. Its inhabitants, the Bhojpuri, were formerly notorious for turbulence and preda tory habits. Before 1857 they were recruited largely for the army, and during the Mutiny they broke out into a rebellion which was not put down till the end of 1858. There was an outbreak of law lessness among the Hindus of this area in 1917, when they at tacked their Mohammedan neighbours, pillaged 139 villages and were only checked by the use of military force. The administra tive headquarters are at Arrah (pop. [1931] 48,922).