Gold in the Indus Valley city of Harappa came from Karnataka's mines
Long before Bengaluru became India's Silicon Valley, the land now called Karnataka was exporting gold: metal found at Harappa has been traced to its mines, hinting at contact with the Indus Valley Civilisation. The state later hosted a string of great empires, from the Hoysalas to Vijayanagara, and it still has villages where Sanskrit is spoken.
Karnataka sits on India's southwestern coast, and it is the only southern state that shares a land border with all four of its southern neighbours. It covers 191,791 square kilometres, sixth largest among Indian states, and the 2011 census counted 61,130,704 people. It was created as Mysore State on 1 November 1956 and took its present name in 1973. The name most likely comes from Kannada words meaning elevated land, though another reading links it to the black cotton soil of the plains.
Hand axes and cleavers show a Palaeolithic presence. Before the third century BCE most of the region belonged to Ashoka's Mauryan Empire. The first homegrown kingdoms, the Kadambas and Western Gangas, were also the first to run government in Kannada, as shown by the Halmidi inscription and by a copper coin of the fifth century unearthed at Banavasi. The Hoysalas built temples in the Vesara style, and in the early 14th century Harihara and Bukka Raya founded the Vijayanagara empire on the Tungabhadra River. One of its chieftains, Kempe Gowda I, built a fort in 1537 that grew into Bengaluru. Vijayanagara fell in 1565 at the Battle of Talikota.
Later rulers left their own stamp. The Bijapur Sultanate produced the Gol Gumbaz, and Mysore's Haidar Ali and his son Tipu Sultan fought four wars against the British before Mysore was absorbed into British India in 1799. In 1830, almost three decades before the rebellion of 1857, Kittur Chennamma, queen of Kittur, led a revolt against the East India Company.
Most of the state lies on the Deccan plains, whose northern part is India's second-largest arid zone, while the Western Ghats rise to 1,925 metres at Mullayanagiri. Forests cover about 16% of the land, below the national average of about 23%. The economy is strong: the state's output for 2023–24 was put at ₹25.01 trillion, with growth of 10.2%.
Source: Karnataka
