Rayagada district is a district in southern Odisha, a state of India, which became an independent district in October 1992. The population consists mainly of tribals, mainly the Khonds and the Soras. Apart from Odia, the indigenous people of the district speak Kui and Sora. It was founded by Maharaja Biswanatha Deba Gajapati of the Surjyabansha dynasty of Jeypore.
Rayagada covers an area of 7,584.7 square kilometers (2,928.5 sq mi) and is divided into eleven blocks. Agriculture is the main source of income and rice, wheat, ragi, green and black gram, groundnut, sweet potato and maize are the main crops of the district.
In the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ashoka, Odisha was part of the Kalinga Empire. The mountainous path between the Vamshadhara and Nagavali rivers was known for its spices. The Rastriks were defeated by Kharvela, the emperor of Kalinga, at the Battle of Chawpagada.
Vishwanath Dev Gajapati, the Suryavanshi king of Nandapur (later Jeypore), established his capital on the bank of Nagavali and called it Rayagada or Rai-gadh. Under his rule, the place prospered economically, which was beneficial to the vast kingdom that stretched from the borders of Jharkhand and West Bengal to the Godavari River in the south. During his reign, he waged a war with Quli Qutb Mulk, the first Qutb Shahi sultan of Golconda, and successfully stopped his advance towards his kingdom. However, he had to give up the rich fertile land in the middle of the Godavari-Krishna delta to implement a peace treaty that made Godavari the border of the two kingdoms. Rayagada remained under the Jeypore Kingdom until the Dissolution Act of 1947.
During the British Raj, Rayagada was under the then recently demoted Jeypore Samasthanam and was part of Koraput district; it was removed from the district on 2 October 1992 as part of the Odisha district expansion plan.
