Sitapur district

Sitapur district is one of the districts which is situated in Uttar Pradesh state of India, with Sitapur town as the district headquarters. Sitapur district is a part of Lucknow division. Sitapur was first constituted as a district by the British after their takeover of Oudh State in February 1856. Before that, under the Mughal Empire and then the Nawabs of Awadh, the area had been divided between multiple administrative units. Even earlier, under the Delhi Sultanate, it appears that the territory of the current district was part of the province of Bahraich, but this is unclear because contemporary sources do not mention this area. During the reign of Akbar, the area of today's Sitapur district was divided between four sarkars, all in the Subah of Awadh. Most of it was in the sarkar of Khairabad: this area comprised the mahals of Haveli Khairabad, Hargam, Laharpur, Biswan, Machhrehta, Sitapur (called "Chhitiapur" in the Ain-i-Akbari), Sadrpur, Nimkhar (a large territory including the later parganas of Aurangabad, Misrikh, and Maholi), and Kharkila (later Korauna). The later pargana of Gundlamau is "untraceable" but was probably divided between Nimkhar and Machhrehta. In addition, the pargana of Chandra was then part of Gopamau in today's Hardoi district, which was also in Khairabad sarkar. A few mahals belonged to Lucknow sarkar: Bari, Manwan, Bahrimau (later Pirnagar; name changed under Jahangir), Bangaon, and Ramkot (included in Lucknow for some reason, although surrounded on all sides by Khairabad). Additionally, the mahal of Fatehpur, in today's Barabanki district, included part of Mahmudabad pargana, which now forms part of Sitapur. The mahal of Qila Nawagarh, comprising the later parganas of Tambaur and Kondri North, was part of Bahraich sarkar; finally, Kondri South was part of Sailuk mahal in the sarkar of Awadh. A few parganas would be established later: for example, Mahmudabad was split off from Fatehpur, during the reign of Jahangir, and Kondri was formed out of Sailuk in 1739, during the reign of Saadat Khan I.