Carnatic Region - Geographic Location

Geographic Location

The region is located in Southern India, between the Western Ghats,Eastern Ghats and the Coromandel Coast, in the Presidency of Madras. It is ultimately derived, according to Bishop Caldwell (Grammar of the Dravidian Languages), from lear, "black", and nadu, "country", i.e. "the black country", a term very suitable to designate the black cotton soil, as it is called, of the plateau of the Southern Deccan. Properly the name is, in fact, applicable only to the country of the Kanarese extending between the Eastern and Western Ghats, over an irregular area narrowing northwards, from Palghat in the south to Bidar in the north, and including Mysore. The extension of the name to the country south of the Karnataka was probably due to the Muslim conquerors who in the 16th century overthrew the kingdom of Vijayanagar, and who extended the name, which they found used of the country north of the Ghats to that south of them. After this period the plain country of the south came to be as called Karnataka Payanghat, or lowlands, as distinguished from Karnataka Balaghat, or highlands. The misapplication of the name Carnatic was carried by the British a step further than by the Mahommedans, it being confined by them to the country below the Ghats, Mysore not being included. Officially, however, this name is no longer applied, the Carnatic having become a mere geographical term. Administratively, the name Carnatic (or rather Karnataka) is now applied only to the Bombay portion of the original Karnataka, viz, the districts of Belgaum, Dharwar and Bijapur, part of North Karnataka, and the native states of the Southern Maharashtra agency and Kolhapur.