Skip to content
BritishIndia.com

Patna

City, 1765–1947

PātaliputraPātaliputtaPatnāपटना

Today Patna, Bihar, India. Same place, same name.

Key facts

Historical name
Patna
Type
City
Coordinates
25.6100° N, 85.1414° E(seed dataset)
Governance
Directly administered
Record confidence
High confidence
Identifiers
Q80484

Directly administered by the Governor-General of India, and therefore part of British India in the statutory sense of the Interpretation Act 1889, s.18.

Location

Pin placed at the coordinates recorded for this place. Colonial-era boundaries are not drawn.

Description

Historic Ganges city and district head-quarters of Bihar; the Imperial Gazetteer lists its subdivisions as Bankipore, Bihar, Barh, Patna City and Dinapore.

Historical notes

Company factory from the 17th century and the opium and saltpetre mart of Bihar; became capital of the new province of Bihar and Orissa in 1912.

Administrative history

Administrative parenthood changed over time. Each row states the years it is recorded for, and the source it comes from.

Administrative units this place is recorded under, by year
YearsRelationUnitConfidence
from 1901Part ofBengal PresidencyPresidency · Directly administeredSnapshot from the 1901 census and the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908-31). End of the relationship not established; recorded as open rather than inferred.High confidencesource
from 1901Part ofPatnaDistrict · Directly administeredSnapshot from the 1901 census and the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908-31). End of the relationship not established; recorded as open rather than inferred.High confidencesource

Recorded names

Every documented spelling and transliteration held for this place. The historical name is canonical; modern names redirect to it.

Name variants recorded for this place
NameScriptTypeYears
PatnaLatinHistorical English
BatanaLatinAlternative spelling
KusumapuraLatinIndigenous
PataligramaLatinIndigenous
PataliputraLatinIndigenous
PataliputraLatinAlternative spelling
PātaliputraOther scriptAlternative spelling
PataliputtaLatinAlternative spelling
PātaliputtaOther scriptAlternative spelling
PatanLatinAlternative spelling
PatnāOther scriptAlternative spelling
Patna CityLatinAlternative spelling
पटनाDevanagariIndigenous
पाटलिपुत्रDevanagariIndigenous

Records and references

Imperial Gazetteer of India
Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908-31), Vol. XX (20), p. 63
Census of India
Census of India, 1901, Vol. VI (6): Bengal

Sources

  1. Encyclopedia· generalCC BY-SA

    Wikipedia: Patna, Wikimedia Foundation

    Wikipedia contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0

    Retrieved 2026-08-29

  2. Archive· descriptionPublic domain

    Internet Archive scan: in.gov.ignca.30990, Internet Archive

    Scanned volume of a pre-1929 publication (Imperial Gazetteer of India 1908–31 / Census of India 1901); public domain. Digitisation courtesy of the Internet Archive.

    Retrieved 2026-08-29

  3. Gazetteer· administrativeLicence unverified

    Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908–31), DSAL entry: Patna, University of Chicago / Digital South Asia Library

    Digital South Asia Library, University of Chicago — the 1908–31 text is public domain, but DSAL's digital presentation states no licence; link-out only

    Retrieved 2026-08-29

  4. Database· identityCC0

    Wikidata (Q80484), Wikimedia Foundation

    Wikidata, CC0 1.0

    Retrieved 2026-08-29

Sources tagged “Licence unverified” are linked to rather than reproduced. Scans and images are only displayed inline where the licence is confirmed permissive.