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Northwestern Provinces

a lieutenant-governorship of British India, constituted under an Act of 1835, and occupying the upper basin of the Ganges and Jumna, extending from Bengal to the Punjab; area, 107,503 square miles; pop. about 50,000,000. Oudh, till 1877, a separate government, is now under the lieutenant-governor of the Northwestern Provinces. The province which constitutes the great part of Hindustan proper, is mainly a great alluvial plain, sloping from the Himalayas, and comprises the Doab, Rohilkhand, Bundelkhand, etc., and the Upper Ganges valley. It is the great great wheat country of India. The headquarters of Hinduism, and containing some of the most sacred memorials of the Aryan race, it was nevertheless long subject to Moslem sway. The divisions of the Northwestern Provinces are Meerut, Agra, Rohilkhand, Allahabad, Benares, Jhansi, Kumaon, and the four divisions of Oudh- Lucknow, Sitapur, Fyabad, Rai Bareli.