Chand

The Chand dynasty rose in Kumaon after the collapse of the Katyuri kingdom. Tradition calls Som Chand its seventh-century founder, but inscriptions suggest the family held power from around 1019, when a Rajput prince migrated to the hills amid the Ghaznavid invasions and set himself up at Champawat, calling his state Kurmanchal. From there the Chands gradually rose from feudatories to kings.

In 1563 Raja Kalyan Chand moved the capital to Almora. His son Rudra Chand seized Sira, invaded Garhwal and in 1587 travelled to Lahore to offer obedience to Akbar. His son Lakshmi Chand built the Bagnath temple at Bageshwar in 1602.

In 1790 Gorkha armies drove out the last raja, Mahendra Chand. British forces captured Almora in 1815, and the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816 incorporated Kumaon into British India.