Patan  district General information

Patan district is a district in the state of Gujarat. It is surrounded by Banas Kantha District to its North and North East, Mehsan to its South & South East and Kutch District and Kutch nu Nanu Ran (Little Rann of Kutch). It was Carved out mainly from Mehsana District. Radhanpur & Santalpur from Banaskantha District wer also merged in Patan District. Its Headquarter is the Historic city of Patan. The district had a population of 1,182,709 of which 20.16% were urban as of 2001. Patan is home to the Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University. Patan has numerous Hindu and Jain temples as well as Muslim mosques.

History

Patan is an ancient fortified town, founded in 746 by Vanraj Chavda, the most prominent king of the Chavda Kingdom. He named the city Anhilpur Patan after his close friend and Prime Minister Anhil. The city was also known as Anhilwara in the Middle Ages. Patan enjoyed a privileged status of capital of Gujarat, for about 600 years from 746 to 1411. The major Rajput clans of Chavdas (746-942), Solankis (942-1244) and Vaghelas (1244-1304) ruled the Hindu Kingdom of Gujarat from Patan. Historian Tertius Chandler estimates that Anhilwara was the tenth-largest city in the world in the year 1000, with a population of approximately 100,000. Muhammad of Ghor attacked the city in the 1180's, but was rebuffed by the Solankis; Muhammed's general (and later Sultan of Delhi) Qutb-ud-din Aybak sacked the city between 1200 and 1210, and it was destroyed by the sultans in 1298. After the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate at the end of the 14th century Gujarat became an independent Sultanate, and Sultan Ahmed Shah moved the capital to Ahmedabad. The modern town of Patan later sprung up near the ruins of Anhilwara, and contains many Jain temples. Patan was part of the Maratha state of Baroda from the mid-eighteenth century until India's independence in 1947, when Baroda became part of Bombay state, which in 1960 was separated into Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Tourist Place

Rani Ki Vav: During the period of the Solanki or Chalukya, the stepwell called the Rani ki vav, or Ran-ki vav (Queen’s step well) was constructed. It is a richly sculptured monument. It is generally assumed that it was built in the memory of Bhimdev I (A.D. 1022 to 1063) son of Mularaja, the founder of the Solanki dynasty of Anahilwada Pattan in about 1050 A.D. by his widowed queen Udayamati.