About Udham Singh Nagar
Udham Singh Nagar is Uttarakhand's most densely populated and industrially developed district — named after the freedom fighter Udham Singh who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer in 1940. Located in the fertile Terai (foothills) belt, it borders UP and is the entry point into Kumaon from the plains.
Jim Corbett National Park – Ramnagar Entry
Ramnagar in Udham Singh Nagar is the primary gateway for Jim Corbett National Park. The Bijrani, Jhirna, Dhela and Durga Devi zones of Corbett are accessed from Ramnagar. See our Jim Corbett safari guide.
Nanak Matta Gurudwara
One of the most revered Sikh shrines in North India — Nanak Matta Gurudwara near Sitarganj is where Guru Nanak Dev Ji is believed to have stopped during his Himalayan journey. A large Gurudwara complex with a beautiful sarovar (sacred pool). Free langar (community meal) available for all visitors 24 hours a day.
Kashipur
An ancient city with a rich historical and archaeological heritage. The Chaiti Devi temple festival (March–April) draws thousands of devotees. Also famous for the Udaipur Devi (Moteshwari) temple which has a history of over 1,000 years.
Pantnagar
Home to G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology — India's first agricultural university (1960). The Pantnagar Airport connects Uttarakhand to Delhi and other cities. The entire Terai region of Udham Singh Nagar is known as "Uttarakhand's food bowl" — producing rice, wheat, sugarcane and mustard.
History of Udham Singh Nagar District
Udham Singh Nagar — the most densely populated and industrially developed district of Uttarakhand — occupies the fertile Terai (foothill plains) at the base of the Kumaon Shivalik hills. Unlike the mountain districts of Uttarakhand, the Terai is a landscape of flat agricultural land, riverine forests and grasslands, shaped more by the agricultural and colonial history of the Indo-Gangetic Plain than by Himalayan civilisation. Yet its history is both deep and dramatic.
The Terai zone of what is now Udham Singh Nagar was historically part of the territory controlled by the Kingdom of Nepal before the British period. Under the Gurkha expansion of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Kumaon Terai was absorbed into the greater Gurkha state. The Anglo-Gurkha War (1814–16) resulted in the Treaty of Sugauli, which ceded large portions of the Terai to the British East India Company. The district's flat forests and grasslands became reserved forests and hunting preserves under British administration — a designation that paradoxically protected the extraordinary wildlife of the area, including tigers, elephants, rhinos and leopards, for over a century.
The district is named after Udham Singh (1899–1940), the Punjabi revolutionary who assassinated Michael O'Dwyer — the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab responsible for approving the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre — in London on March 13, 1940. Udham Singh waited over 21 years to carry out the assassination as an act of revenge for the massacre that killed nearly 400 people. He was hanged in Pentonville Prison, London. Though from Punjab, Udham Singh is venerated across north India as a symbol of anticolonial resistance, and the district's naming in his honour reflects the depth of feeling his sacrifice evoked.
The Terai colonisation scheme of the 1950s and 60s fundamentally transformed the district. After Independence, the Indian government opened the previously forested Terai lands for agricultural settlement, bringing large numbers of migrants from UP, Punjab (especially partition refugees) and other states to clear forest and cultivate land. This rapid settlement created the diverse, multi-community character of Udham Singh Nagar — a district where Punjabi, Bengali, UP, Kumaoni and other communities live side by side, giving it an unusually cosmopolitan character for a Himalayan state.
The establishment of Pantnagar University (G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology) in 1960 — India's first agricultural university — brought the Green Revolution to the Terai. High-yielding varieties of wheat and rice were developed and disseminated from Pantnagar, contributing to India's agricultural transformation in the 1960s and 70s. The university's research campus remains one of the most important agricultural institutions in Asia.
The district became the entry point for Jim Corbett National Park — established in 1936 as Hailey National Park, India's first national park — through the Ramnagar gate. Corbett's legacy continues as both a wildlife conservation touchstone and the foundation of Uttarakhand's most important wildlife tourism economy. Udham Singh Nagar became a separate district in 1995 and is today Uttarakhand's economic engine, hosting the Rudrapur–Sitarganj industrial corridor, Pantnagar Airport and the state's most productive agricultural land.
How to Reach Udham Singh Nagar
- By Air: Pantnagar Airport — flights from Delhi (1 hour)
- By Train to Ramnagar: Trains from Delhi, Moradabad to Ramnagar (for Corbett)
- By Train to Haldwani: Kathgodam station — major railway hub for all of Kumaon
- By Road from Delhi: 260 km via Moradabad–Rudrapur (5 hours)