Pattukkottai Taluk
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Pattukkottai Taluk
Southern subdivision and taluk of Tanjore District, Madras, bordering on Palk Strait, and lying between 9 49' and 10 35' N. and 78 55' and 79 32' E., with an area of 906 square miles. The population in 1901 was 295,894, compared with 271,626 in 1891, showing an increase in the decade of nearly 9 per cent., due to the influx of labourers for the extension of the District board railway recently under construction. PATTUKKOTTAI TOWN, the head-quarters, has a population of 7,504, and ADIRAMPATNAM, a small port, 10,494.
The number of villages is 792. The demand for land revenue and cesses in 1903-4 amounted to Rs. 2,97,000. In several ways it forms a striking contrast to the other taluks of the District, since practically no part of it is within reach of the Cauvery. The greater portion is ' dry ' land, the small ' wet ' area within it being watered by tanks and wells; and the soil is nearly all of a red ferruginous variety which forms arable land of inferior quality. Four-fifths of the total area is either Zamindari or inam a further point of contrast to the rest of the District ;but in the remainder the percentage of unoccupied land is higher, and the incidence of the assessment per head and the rent of the average holding are lower, than in any other taluk. Pattuk- kottai is the most backward tract in Tanjore in point of education, and, though the largest of the taluks, is the least densely peopled.
