Balangir

Balangir lies in the western Odisha country once ruled by the Chauhan kings of Patna. Their kingdom, centred first on Patnagarh, grew under Ramai Deo in the fourteenth century to become the leading power among a group of neighbouring forts and chiefships. The related house of Sambalpur later ruled the land north of the Ang River.

A local historical account attributes the establishment of Balangir, originally called Balaramgarh, to a sixteenth-century shift of the capital from Patnagarh. In the eighteenth century the Patna state fell under the influence of the Marathas of Nagpur. During the Second Anglo-Maratha War the East India Company occupied it in 1804, before returning it to the Nagpur ruler in 1806. These changes placed an old Chauhan principality within the struggles of larger powers.