HISTORY
Prior to the establishment of British Calcutta, there were
three pre-existing Bengali villages in the area: Suttanutte (or Sutani) and
Gobindpore (or Govindapur, which formed the nucleus of Calcutta) plus one
village by the name of Kalikata, the least important of the three. It seems
likely that both ‘Calcutta’ (English) and ‘Kolkata’ (Bengali) were derived
from ‘Kalikata’. Kolkata’s history is intimately related to the British East
India Company, which first arrived in 1690, and to British India, of which
Calcutta became the capital in 1772 and remained so until 1912. The
Englishman, Job Charnock, is traditionally credited with founding the city,
although this notion has been challenged in recent years, mostly by
Bengalis, who prefer to believe that the original three villages represented
a preexisting settlement - chiefly Gobindpore. The city was occupied by a
large Bengali force in 1756, immediately after which occurred the infamous
Black Hole of Calcutta incident. Calcutta, briefly renamed Alinagur, was
quickly retaken the following year by a small British force under Sir Robert
Clive. In the nineteenth century Calcutta was the centre of activity in the
early stages of the national movement of independence. In 1943 the city
suffered an acute famine and its port was bombed by the Japanese. In 1946
there was an outbreak of violence between Hindus and Muslims, which claimed
over 2,000 lives.
Despite such challenges, Kolkata remained in the forefront of Indian
prosperity up to independence and for some more years afterwards before the
population pressure on infrastructure and political disturbances led to a
gradual decline. A violent and bloody Marxist-Maoist movement known as the
Naxal movement (after Naxalbari, the place where it first started) in the
1970s left the city badly bruised. The city’s recovery process gathered
steam after India’s liberalization in the early nineties. From January 1,
2001, the local government decided to change ‘Calcutta’ to ‘Kolkata’ and
passed the law legalising the name on July 30, 2001
GEOGRAPHY
|
Area |
Calcutta
City Area 187.33 sq km. and Calcutta Metropolitan District Area 1380.12
sq/km. (532.87 sq miles). |
|
Population |
4.8
million as per 2004 census. |
|
Altitude |
6.4
meters (20 ft.) above sea level. |
|
Climate |
Winter |
Max
36.3° Celsius |
| |
Min
9.6° Celsius |
| |
Summer |
Max 41.7°
Celsius |
| |
Min 38.1°
Celsius |
|
Rainfall |
1581
mm (Monsoon Months – June to early September). |
|
Best
Season |
October
to March. |
|
Clothing |
Cotton
in summer and light woolen in winter. |
Religion
and languages
Main languages spoken in Calcutta are Bengali,
Hindi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Urdu.
Religion-wise, breakup of population of
Calcutta is indicated below as per 1991 census :
- Hindus - 3546431
- Muslims - 779433
- Christians - 38155
- Sikhs - 15786
- Buddhists - 6171
- Jains -13053
- Other religions - 757
- Religions not stated - 33
Climate
Calcutta has a subtropical climate, with summer
monsoons. The annual mean temperature is 26.8 °C, and monthly mean
temperatures range from 20 °C to 31 °C and maximum temperatures in Calcutta
often exceed 40 °C during May-June.The lowest temperature hovers around 12 -
14 °C in the winter months of December and January.Winter is short- lasting
- about 2 and a half months.
The main seasonal influence upon the
climate is the monsoon. Maximum rainfall occurs during the monsoon in August
(306 mm) and the average annual total is 1,582 mm.
Early morning mists are common. Evening
smog often occurs due to nighttime temperature inversions and mixing heights
are generally restricted to below 500 m during the night.
Summer is dominated by strong
south-westerly monsoon winds. Mean ventilation coefficients are greatest in
the pre-monsoon (8,118 m2s-1) and monsoon (7,410 m2s-1) periods. Total
duration of sunshine is 2,528 hours per annum with maximum insolation
occurring in March
