Map - Balaghat district (Bālāghāt)

Balaghat district is a district of Madhya Pradesh state in Central India. The town of Balaghat serves as its administrative headquarters.

Balaghat is known for its tile factories, rice mills and forests.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the district was divided among two Gond kingdoms; the portion of the district west of the Wainganga was part of the Gond kingdom of Deogarh, while the eastern portion was part of the Garha-Mandla kingdom.

The Deogarh kingdom was annexed by the Bhonsle Marathas of Nagpur in 1743, and shortly thereafter conquered all but the northern section of the district. This section, together with the rest of the Garha-Mandla kingdom, was annexed in 1781 to the Maratha province of Saugor, then under control of the Maratha Peshwa. In 1798 the Bhonsles also obtained the former Garha-Mandla territories.

In 1818, at the conclusion of the Third Anglo-Maratha War, The Nagpur kingdom became a princely state of British India. In 1853, the Nagpur kingdom, including Balaghat District, was annexed by the British, and became the new province of Nagpur. Balaghat District was then divided among the British districts of Seoni and Bhandara. Nagpur Province was reorganized into the Central Provinces in 1861.

Balaghat District was constituted during the years 1867 - 1873 by amalgamation of parts of the Bhandara, Mandla and Seoni districts. The headquarters of the district was originally called "Burha" or "बूढ़ा". Later, however, this name fell into disuse and was replaced by "Balaghat", which was originally the name of the district only. Administratively, the district was divided into only two tehsils, Baihar tehsil in the north, which included the plateau region, and Balaghat tehsil in south, which included the more settled lowlands in the south. The new district was part of the Central Provinces Nagpur Division.

After Indian Independence in 1947, the Central Provinces became the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. In 1956, Balaghat District became part of the Jabalpur Division of Madhya Pradesh, when the districts to the south of Balaghat, including Old Bhandara (current Bhandara and Gondia), and Nagpur districts, were transferred to Bombay State.

Balaghat name signifies “above the ghats” and is due to the fact that the original purpose of Government in constituting the District was to effect the colonization of the tracts above the ghats.

In the middle of the 19th century, the upper part of the district was a lightly settled, and an ancient Buddhist temple of cut stone is suggestive of a civilization which had disappeared before historic times. The first Deputy-Commissioner of the district, Colonel Bloomfield is believed as the pioneer or the creator of Balaghat District whom encouraged the settlement of Baihar tehsil with Panwar Rajput from the Wainganga Valley. About that time one Lachhman Panwar established the first villages on the Paraswada plateau. Malanjkhand is a copper mine in the region.

In 1868-1869 the rains ceased a month before time, causing the failure of the lowland rice crop and a famine. The district suffered very severely from the famine of 1896-1897, when the output of all crops fell to only 17 percent of normal. The district suffered again in 1899-1900, when the rice crop failed again, falling to only 23 percent of normal. The population in 1901 was 326,521, having decreased 15% in the decade 1891-1901, due to the effects of famine.