Jalesar

Jalesar lies in the Doab northeast of Agra, within the Braj country. By the late sixteenth century it gave its name to a Mughal revenue district. Abu'l-Fazl's Ain-i Akbari listed Jalesar as a mahal of Agra sarkar, with an assessed revenue and an obligation to provide infantry and cavalry. The name therefore denoted both a settlement and an administrative territory whose villages contributed to imperial finance and military service.

That territory changed as new centres appeared. Under Shah Jahan, his minister Sa'dullah Khan founded Sadabad and organised a surrounding pargana, drawing land from older jurisdictions. The earlier Jalesar district had extended into parts of the country later associated with Hathras and Mursan. British administration brought another rearrangement: when Mathura district was formed in 1832, Jalesar was among its tahsils. Successive governments thus reused this established local centre while repeatedly adjusting the countryside administered under its name.