About Kathua

Kathua district is one of 14 administrative districts that comprise the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India. It is surrounded by Jammu to the northwest, the Doda and Udhampur districts to the north, the state of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Punjab to the south, and Pakistan to the west. Its terrain is diverse, consisting of rich agricultural areas along the Pakistani border, plains sweeping eastward to the foothills of the Himalaya, and a mountainous Pahari region in the east.

Kathua district is divided into 8 blocks:Bani, Barnoti, Basholi, Billawar, Duggan, Ghagwal, Hiranagar, Kathua and Lohai Malhar. It has approximately 587 villages.

The traditional language of Kathua is Dogri. The Pahari language is prevalent in the mountainous area of the east. The principal media of education are English, Hindi, and Urdu.

In a Muslim majority state, Kathua, like the Jammu region, is overwhelmingly Hindu, the religion practiced by 91% of its district population. Another 7% is Muslim, and 2% Sikh.

A relatively safe regional pocket, Kathua was spared the decade-long insurrection sparked by the Khalistan separatist movement in Punjab that ended in the early 1990s, just to its south, and the ongoing Freedom movement in Kashmir Valley further to the north, beginning in the 1980's.