KATHIAWAR - GUJARAT PENINSULA

 

Kathiawar, also called Saurashtra Peninsula is bounded by the Little Rann (marsh) of Kachchh (Kutch) to the north, the Gulf of Khambhat to the east, the Arabian Sea to the southwest, and the Gulf of Kutch to the northwest. From the northeast an ancient sandstone formation extends into the peninsula, which has an area of 23,000 square miles (60,000 square km). Most of the sandstone, however, is masked by lavas. The coastal regions are flanked west and east by clays and limestones and south by alluvium and miliolite, a wind-deposited sand concretion known as Porbandar stone and widely used for building material. Bhavnagar is the principal port and city in Kathiawar.

Some historians suggest that the Kathi people are basically Scythians who migrated to Surashtra (referred to as Saraostus as well, by Greeks) around second century B.C.

Kati is the name of an ancient tribe, which in Afghanistan has given its name to the Katawaz district of Ghazni ; they are the same people, apparently, as the Kathi of the Punjab, whose ancestors opposed Alexander, and whose posterity afterwards spread southwards and gave their name to an extensive country, the modern  Kathiawar.