Short answer. Nagpur began as a Gond settlement, grew under the Bhonsle rulers of the Maratha Empire, and passed to the British in 1853 when Raghuji III died without an heir. It then became the capital of the Central Provinces, and later of Madhya Pradesh (1950–1956), before the 1956 reorganisation placed it in Bombay State and, from 1960, in Maharashtra. It remains Maharashtra's winter capital.
Origins: the Gond city
The region was governed in the 17th century by the Gond kingdom of Deogarh, in what is now Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh. Sources differ on who founded the city: the district administration credits the Gonds generally, and more recent accounts name Bakht Buland, a prince of Deogarh. His successor Chand Sultan fixed his capital at Nagpur and made it a walled town; he died in 1739.
Bhonsle rule
After Chand Sultan the city passed to the Bhonsles, Maratha rulers who made Nagpur the seat of the Nagpur Kingdom. Their rule ended after the Battle of Sitabuldi (November 1817), fought on the twin hills at the city's centre, in which British forces defeated the Bhonsle army.
Timeline at a glance
- 1739 — Chand Sultan dies; Gond rule gives way to the Bhonsles.
- 1817 — Battle of Sitabuldi; British influence is imposed on the Bhonsle state.
- 1853 — Raghuji III dies without an heir and the British take control of Nagpur.
- 1853–1861 — Nagpur Province under a British commissioner.
- 1861 — the Central Provinces are formed as a separate unit, with Nagpur as capital.
- 1903 — Berar is attached, giving the Central Provinces and Berar.
- 1947–1950 — the region becomes a province of independent India, then in 1950 part of Madhya Pradesh, with Nagpur as its capital.
- 14 October 1956 — B. R. Ambedkar embraces Buddhism at Nagpur with a large following, at the site now called Deekshabhoomi.
- 1 November 1956 — linguistic reorganisation moves Nagpur to Bombay State.
- 1960 — Bombay State splits; Nagpur is in Maharashtra.
What survives
- Sitabuldi Fort — on the hills where the 1817 battle was fought.
- Zero Mile Stone — a British-era survey marker in the city, often described as the geographic centre of India, but that claim is contested (see below).
- Deekshabhoomi — the monument marking the 1956 mass conversion, now a major Buddhist pilgrimage site.
Where the sources disagree
- Who founded Nagpur: "the Gonds" (district administration) versus Bakht Buland specifically (more recent accounts).
- The 1853–1861 label: one widely used summary says Nagpur Province lay "within the Central Provinces and Berar" in these years. That name dates from 1903, so this page uses the sequence Nagpur Province, then Central Provinces (1861), then Central Provinces and Berar (1903).
- "Centre of India": the Zero Mile Stone is called the centre of India, but villages in Madhya Pradesh also lay claim to that title. Treat it as a marker and a tradition, not a surveyed fact.
- Independence-era detail: our sources agree on Nagpur as capital of Madhya Pradesh from 1950 but give little on how long each arrangement lasted; we state only the dates they share.
Sources
Compiled on 19 September 2026 from District Nagpur, Government of Maharashtra: History, the Maharashtra Gazetteers Department, and Wikipedia's articles on Nagpur, the Nagpur Kingdom, the Battle of Sitabuldi, the Central Provinces and Berar, the Zero Mile Stone and Deekshabhoomi. The district page and Wikipedia overlap heavily, so they are not fully independent.
For the city today, see Nagpur, Nagpur, the Orange City and Nagpur as the centre of India's logistics.