Lawngtlai district

Lawngtlai district is one of the eleven districts of Mizoram state in India. The district is bounded on the north by Lunglei district, on the west by Bangladesh, on the south by Myanmar and on the east by Saiha district. The district occupies an area of 2557.10 km2. Lawngtlai town is the administrative headquarters of the district. The district shares its boundaries with Lunglei and Saiha districts on the north and south respectively. The inhabitants of the district are mainly the ethnic groups of tribals like Pang, Lai and Chakma, who are among the minor tribal communities of Mizoram. The main occupation is cultivation and the rural population largely depends on agriculture for their subsistence. The physical feature is mainly hilly except with long narrow strip of low-lying area along the western side of Chamdur Valley. Prior to the arrival of the British in the late 19th century, the area which became Lawngtlai District was ruled by local chieftains, whose zones of control were often a single village or small group of villages. In 1888 the chief of the Fungkah village attacked a British surveying team and killed four men including a Lt. Stewart. The following year the British sent in a punitive expedition to pacify the area. What became Lawngtlai District was incorporated into the South Lushai Hills and administered by the lieutenant governor of Bengal. In 1898 North and South Lushai Hills were merged into the Lushai Hills District and were administered as part of Assam. In 1919, the Lushai Hills, along with some of the other hill districts, were declared "Backward Tracts" under the Government of India Act, and in 1935 this denomination was changed to "excluded area". In 1952 the creation of the Lushai Hills Autonomous District Council removed the last power of the local chieftains. The area became part of Mizoram when the Union Territory of Mizoram was created in 1972, and remained a part of it when the state was created in 1987.