1879 Bombay Gazette Map of Junagadh, Gujarat, India

Tapestry of Princely States in Gujarat.

This is a scarce 1879 map of the Junagadh State on the Kathiawar Peninsula in the Indian region of Gujarat, printed by the Bombay Gazette Steam Press. It captures the region during the British Raj, when it was indirectly overseen by the British and composed of dozens of princely states.

A Closer Look

Coverage includes the contemporary Junagadh State, roughly equivalent to the southwestern portion of the Kathiawar Peninsula. Complex borders, including exclaves and enclaves, demarcate the limits of Junagadh and other nearby princely states. Cities and villages are labelled throughout, including some disputed between Junagadh and neighboring territories, such as the group of villages disputed with Bhavnagar at right. Mountains, waterways, terrain, railways (under construction), roads, telegraph lines, and offices, schools, and post offices are indicated according to the legend at left.

Just north of Junagadh is the Sakkarbaug Zoological Garden, the oldest in India, opened in 1863. To the east of the city is the mountain of Girnar, a major pilgrimage site for Jains in particular and home to hundreds of Hindu and Jain temples, some of which are listed in an index at left. A smaller index below refers to the large Osham hill to the west of Junagadh. Two inset maps at the bottom-left show villages on the edge of the state that were partially controlled by Junagadh.

Junagadh State under the British

Junagadh State was a creation of the British East India Company, of which it became a protectorate in 1807 (following the Second Anglo-Maratha War), formed from the historic state of Saurashtra. This area was never directly administered by the British but instead was divided into over 100 princely states that fell under the EIC's Kathiawar Agency, which remained in existence until independence in 1947. Some of these princely states were minuscule, no larger than a village, while others were significant regional powers. As the Nawab of Junagadh and many other local rulers were Muslim, but their populations were largely Hindu, the intercommunal tensions that emerged during independence and partition were especially fraught.

As indicated here, the name of the British Junagadh State, now a district of Gujarat (after briefly being administered by Bombay/Mumbai after independence), is derived from the city at its heart. Its name means 'Old Fort,' referring to the Uparkot Fort, dating to the Maurya period (c. 320 - 185 BCE), and the city contains one of the fourteen Rock Edicts of the emperor Ashoka (r. c. 268 - 232 BCE), a vitally important source for early Indian history.

Publication History and Census

This map was printed by the Bombay Gazette Steam Press in 1879. The printer was presumably affiliated with the Bombay Gazette, a major English-language newspaper founded in 1789. We have been unable to identify any other examples in institutional collections or on the market, and are only aware of one example of a similarly titled map printed many years later (1939), a possible later edition. The map may have been prepared for the Kathiawar volume of the large multivolume Bombay Gazetteer, published in several editions starting in the late 1870s, but surviving digitized examples of the Kathiawar volume of the 1879 edition and editions from the early 1880s do not include the map, suggesting it was a separately-issued supplement.

Condition

Average. Mounted on tissue. Several areas of loss, most with manuscript infill. Offsetting. Wear along original fold lines. Toning.