NORTH-WEST PROVINCES, an administrat ive province of British India, lying between lat. 23° 51' 30" and 31° 5' N., and long. 77* 3' and 84° 43' 30" E. Area, 111,236 square miles. Ile • tween the census of 1872 and 1882, Oudh and the N.W. Provinces were placed under one Lieu tenant-Governor ; and the 1881 figures show 11,407,625 souls for Oudh, and 32,699,436 for the N.W. Provinces, giving a total of 44,849,611 souls. These provinces are bounded on the north by the Chinese empire, on the north-east by Nepal, on the east by Bengal, on the south by Chutia Nagpur, Rewa, the Bundelkhand States, and the Central Provinces, and on the west by Sindia's dominions, Rajputana, and the Panjab. Its revenue divisions are—Agra, Allahabad, Benares, Jhansi, Kamaon, Meerut, Rohilkhand. The Native States are—Garhwal or Tehri, with 4180 square miles, and 150,000 people ; and Rampur, 945 square miles, and 507,013 inhabitants. The family domains of the maharaja of Benares are of 986 square miles, and 392,415 inhabitants. Its Physical character is seen in the N.W. Himalayas, in Garhwal, the Siwalik on the south of the Him alayas, the Doab of the Ganges and Jumna, the poor .tract of Bundelkhand, and the triangular plain of Rohilkhand.
Its rivers are the Ganges, the Jumna, and the Gogra, two Kali Naddi, Hindan, Chambal, 13etwa, Ken, Ramganga, Gumti, and Rapti. The ancient historical were Hastinapur and Ayodhya. In 1881, the prominent castes in the population were:— Christians, . . . 47,673 Lohar 497 242 Muhammadans, 6,232,900 Gujar, , 269 838 Sikhs, . . . . 3,644 Mali, 257,231 Buddhists, . . . . 103 Mallah, . . . 613,016 Chamars, . . 5,413,067 Babhan, . . . 250,952 Brahmans, . . • 4,711,890 Gadaria, . . 866,990 Rajputs, . . 3,157,190 Kori, 843,422 Ahir, . . . 3,584,672 Dom, . . . 205,424 Kurmi, . . . 2,110,345 Kalwar, . . . 345,751 Banya, . . . 1,213,471 Bhangi, . . . 435,633 Jat, 674 547 Lonia, . . . 378,619 Teli, 687,672 Bhurji, . . . . 304,844 Kachhi, . . , 1,959,514 Ahar, . . . . 272,863 Kayasth, . . 519,982 Bhuinhar, . . . 188,151 Pasi, . . 1,034,602 1Chatak, . . . 152,030 Kahar, . . 1,225,420 Bhat, . . . . 130,402 Kumhar, . . . 639,380 Gosain, . . . . 120,641 Nai, 644,142 Its modern cities are—Ag,ra, Aligarh, Allahabad, Bareilly, Bcnares, Cawnpur,Farrakhabad,Gorakh pur, Hardwar, Mirzapur, Moradabad, 3futtra, with the hill sanatoria of Landaur, Mussoori, and Naini Tal.
Places of interest in the provinces are the sacred Hindu town of Hardwar ; the ruined sites of Kanouj and Hastinapur ; the deserted Moghul capital of Futtehpur Sikri ; and the ancient temples and fortresses of Mahoba and Kolinjar ; and for irrigation the British have formed the Ganges, the Eastern Ganges, the Jumna, the Dun, and the Agra canals; also the Bijnour canals and the Bundelkhand lakes.
The region of the N.W. Provinces and Oudh is that in which all invaders from the N.W. have formed governments. That portion of the Panjab which surrounds the upper waters of the Saraswati river is still regarded by the Aryan Hindus as one of the most sacred spots of Hindu pilgrimage ; and their earliest traditions of the N.W. Provinces cluster round the city of Hastinapur, the ancient metropolis of the Pandava. But the earliest empire in this portion of Upper India of which any certain monuments remain, was that of the Buddhist dynasty of Magadha. It was at Kapila, D.P. 598, that Sakya, the founder of the Buddhist creed, was born, and he died at Kassia, in the Gorakhpur district, in 543. When Alexander the Great invaded the Panjab in 'ix. 327, he heard of the great Naga empire of Magadha, whose capital lay at Palibothra, the modern Patna. The reigning prince at the date of Alexander's invasion bore the name of Nanda. His minister Chandragupta, the Sandracottus of the Greeks, assassinated the Naga prince, and seized upon the throne for himself. Seleucus, the successor of Alexander in his easternmost dominions, marched with a largo army into the Ganges basin, and endeavoured to annex the provinces to his own kingdom, but Chandragupta succeeded in so far as to preserve his territory intact, and received the Greek philosopher Megasthenes as ambassador from Seleucus at his court in Palibothra. Under his grandson Asoka, B.C. 260, the whole of Hindustan and the Panjab, together with portions of the Dekhan and the north western mountain country, formed parts of the Magadha empire. The pillar and rock edicts containing the inscriptions of Asoka, are still to be seen at Pesliawur, at .Allahabad, at Dehli, in the Debra Doon, also on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. and in Gujerat • and he established Buddhism as the State religion throughout his wide dominions.
Little is known of the history of this region for the next 1500 years, during which it was overrun by Tartar, Rajput, and Jat clans, whose last effort against the advancing Muhananiadans failed under the leadership of Prithi-raj. Mu hammad Ghori, who overthrew the Ghaznivide dynasty, was the founder of the Musalman power in Hindustan. Subsequently, in 1398, 'Timur, crossing the Indus at Attock, marched through the Panjab to Debli, under the walls of which lie defeated Muhammad Taghalaq, and then entered the imperial capita] in state.