JHANSI, a city and district of British India, in the Allahabad division o£ the United Provinces. The city is the centre of the Indian Midland railway system, whence four lines diverge to Agra, Cawnpore, Allahabad and Bhopal. Pop. (1901), 55,724. A stone fort crowns a neighbouring rock. Formerly the capital of a Mahratta principality, which lapsed to the British in 1853, it was during the Mutiny the scene of disaffection and massacre. It was then made over to Gwalior, but has been taken back in exchange for other territory. Even when the city was within Gwalior, the civil headquarters and the cantonment were at Jhansi Naoabad, under its walls. Jhansi is the principal centre for the agricultural trade of the district, but its manufactures are small. The DISTRICT OF JHANSI was enlarged in 1891 by the incorporation of the former district of Lalitpur, which extends farther into the hill country, almost entirely surrounded by native states. Combined area, 3628 sq.m. Pop. (1901), 616,759 showing a decrease of 10% in the decade, due to the results of famine. The main line and branches of the Indian Midland railway serve the district, which forms a portion of the hill country of Bundelkhand, sloping down from the outliers of the Vindhyan range on the south to the tributaries of the Jumna on the north. The extreme south is composed of parallel rows of long and narrow-ridged hills. Through the intervening valleys the rivers flow down impetuously over ledges of granite or quartz. North of the hilly region, the rocky granite chains gradually lose themselves in clusters of smaller hills. The northern portion consists of the level plain of Bundelkhand, distinguished for its deep black soil, known as _mar_, and admirably adapted for the cultivation of cotton. The district is intersected or bounded by three principal rivers--the Pahuj, Betwa and Dhasan. The district is much cut up, and portions of it are insulated by the surrounding native states. The principal crops are millets, cotton, oil-seeds, pulses, wheat, gram and barley. The destructive _kans_ grass has proved as great a pest here as elsewhere in Bundelkhand. Jhansi is especially exposed to blights, droughts, floods, hailstorms, epidemics, and their natural consequence--famine.