Saurashtra

Saurashtra (Gujarati: સૌરાષ્ટ્ર, Hindi: सौराष्ट्र) is a region of western India, located on the Arabian Sea coast of Gujarat state. It consists of 7 districts of Gujarat, including Rajkot District. It is a peninsula also called Kathiawar after the Kathi Darbar who ruled part of the region once. The peninsula is shared with the Kachchh region which occupies the north, Saurashtra or Sorath forming the southern portion. The Saurastra or Kathiwar region comprises the south western part of Gujarat state and the districts included in this region are Rajkot, Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Porbandar, Jamnagar, Amreli, Surendranagar, and some portions of Ahmedabad District also fall under this area.
Referred to as Surashtra and as some other names as well over a period of time, since the Mahabharata and Vedic period, this region is mentioned again as Surastrene, or Saraostus in the 1st century CE Periplus of the Erythraean Sea:
“ "Beyond the gulf of Baraca is that of Barygaza and the coast of the country of Ariaca, which is the beginning of the Kingdom of Nambanus and of all India. That part of it lying inland and adjoining Scythia is called Abiria, but the coast is called Syrastrene. It is a fertile country, yielding wheat and rice and sesame oil and clarified butter, cotton and the Indian cloths made therefrom, of the coarser sorts. Very many cattle are pastured there, and the men are of great stature and black in colour. The metropolis of this country is Minnagara, from which much cotton cloth is brought down to Barygaza.

Sorath
For a long span of time, the name Sorath remained limited to the region when Chudasama Rajput (Raa' dynasty) ruled from 9th centuary up to 15th century from 875 up to 1473 and then Muslim-ruled Princely State of Junagadh ("Junagarh" or the "Old City"). During British rule, Junagadh and its neighboring princely states were supervised by the Western India States Agency (WISA). In 1947, Junagadh's Muslim ruler desired to accede his territory to Pakistan, but the predominantly Hindu population rebelled. He fled to Pakistan, and a plebiscite was conducted, as a result of which the kingdom was merged into the Indian Union.

Sorath/Saurashtra has a great spiritual heritage and has produced many Saints and divine souls. For a brief list of some notable figures of Saurashtra / Kathiawar, please refer to Notable characters and figures.))

Language
Saurashtra (alternate names and spellings: Sourashtra, Sowrashtra, pattunulkaarar, Palkar, Saurashtri) is also the name of an Indo-Aryan language of Kathiawar-Saurashtra. Though Saurashtra Language is not spoken in the region now, people of this region who migrated to Southern India- especially Tamil Nadu (Ambur, Madurai, Paramakudi, Salem, Tanjore, Trichy, Namakkal, Kanya kumari, Kanchipuram, walajapet, Arani, chennai,palayamkottai, Kumbakonam, Thirubuvanam and Andhra Pradesh- still preserve and speak the language. The script of this language is derived from the Devanagari Script and shares similarities with modern day Gujarati.

Natural Resources
Saurashtra has been a flourishing region and rich in natural resources since ancient times, while having gone through several droughts especially during 20th century, water resources and its related dynamics have influenced the region and its agro-economy to certain extent. It is found that water was easily available in the region 10–15 years ago. Ashvin A Shah, a US -based engineering consultant who conducted a survey in 1998 on water availability in the region, says, “The presence of 700,000 dugwells in Saurashtra region indicates the presence of extensive groundwater aquifers throughout the region. This means there is one well for fewer than 20 people or one well every 300 metres"

Saurashtra went through severe droughts over the years to the extent that people could no longer grow crops, nor did they have drinking water available. There has been in recent times a campaign to take up rain water harvesting.[2] Significantly, the Check dam campaign, that went along from late '90s brought almost a drastic change resulting in raising water tables in Saurashtra