Budaun

Budaun stands near the Sot River north of the Ganges, in the country later known as Rohilkhand. Captured by Qutb al-Din Aibak in 1196, it became an important post on the northern frontier of the Delhi Sultanate. Iltutmish and his son Rukn al-Din Firuz both served as its governor before taking the throne of Delhi. A great domed mosque was built in Budaun in 1223.

The town was burned in 1571, and the governor's seat was moved to Sahaspur-Bilari in the seventeenth century. Budaun remained a centre of the surrounding region as Mughal authority gave way to Rohilla and later Awadh rule. In 1801 the Nawab of Awadh ceded the town and its district to the British East India Company, extending its control across the plain.