Mar: चंद्रपूर c(h)andrapūra
‘Moon City’ -City/District Maharashtra
From Skt: c(h)and(r)a, ‘shining’, ‘pleasant’, ‘moon’; and Skt: pur, ‘city’, ‘settlement’.
The Chanda dynasty started with Bhim Balal Sha in the 9thC and ended in the 18thC with Nilkant Sha. This Gond kingdom, centred in the highlands of central India, produced a series of nineteen extraordinary kings with efficient systems of revenue collection to finance forest clearance, agricultural development, and the building of dams/reservoirs for irrigation.
The modern Chandrapur is a coal region with 27 mines earning itself the sobriquet, ‘Black Gold City’. It has also been called a ‘geological museum’ and has a wide range of valuable minerals and fossild.of rocks as well as commercially valuable minerals and fossils.
Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, 30km from Chandrapur, is home to nearly 150 tigers as well as Indian leopards, sloth bears, striped hyenas, barking deer, marsh crocodiles, and many more.
Tiger cub, Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve Siddhesh Sawant
