India Land Settlement Reports
held by SAMP as of August 2000
INDIA
SAMP holds a near complete collection of Indian Land Survey
and Settlement Reports, filmed at the British Library’s
India Office Library. This collection reflects an important
source of material for the study of Indian rural society,
particularly economic and social changes during the period
of British rule in India.
British India was divided into a system of states and union
territories, a model still employed by the current government.
Each Indian state was organized into a number of districts,
which were divided for certain administrative purposes into
units variously known as tahsils, taluqs (talook
or taluka), or subdivisions. The Land Survey and
Settlement Reports were compiled by the provincial administrations
primarily as a fiscal and cadastral record to identify the
lands and persons under obligation to the government.
The first part of each land settlement report generally
describes the physical features and population of each district
and provides a sketch of its revenue history. The second
part contains the account of the latest survey and settlement
operations and analysis of the statistics compiled from
the records prepared. These survey and settlement
reports contain information on a variety of other subjects,
including boundaries and administrative divisions existing
at the time, their physical features, quality of soils,
condition of communications, markets, population growth,
and information about caste and social groups. They also
include comparisons of the past and present conditions of
the areas.
The land settlement reports cover the districts of British
India, which today are dispersed into the countries of India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Burma (which under British control
became a province of India until 1937). The reports have
been separated here into the countries in which the districts
eventually fell. The reports of the erstwhile princely states
are listed separately by state rather than by the district
in which they might have merged. Similarly, reports from
the presidencies of Bombay and Madras have been listed separately.
Records are listed displaying (in the following order):
CRL call number, title, imprint, British Library shelfmark
(V/27/314 series), OCLC number, and CRL record number.
Uncataloged titles do not yet have the last two items.
MF-3960 271 reels (cataloged)
MF-3981 47 reels (cataloged)
MF-3989 36 reels (cataloged) Bombay: state [from the Library
of Congress]
MF-4041 38 reels (cataloged)
MF-4138 55 reels (cataloged)
MF-4203 28 reels (cataloged)
MF-4352 68 reels (cataloged)
158 reels (uncataloged) TEMP LOCATION NUMBER:
T3R66K
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