Kara

Kara stood beside the Ganges in the lower Doab and formed part of the older administrative region of Kara–Manikpur. Its position in the northern plains made it a centre of government under the Delhi and Jaunpur sultanates. The late sixteenth century brought a change in the hierarchy of regional capitals, as Akbar established Allahabad at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna.

Between 1580 and 1583 the Mughal administration gathered the former territories of Jaunpur, Kara–Manikpur and Bandhogarh within the province of Allahabad. Kara retained an administrative role within that larger unit. Abul Fazl's Ain-i Akbari listed the sarkar of Karrah with twelve mahals, including the town itself and its suburban district. The imperial survey treated those lands as units of assessment, revenue and military obligation. Kara's earlier prominence thus continued in a more subordinate form: its name still organised a substantial fiscal district even as the provincial capital and its fort drew higher authority farther downriver.