Venugrama,the bamboo village

• The bamboo village

  Belagavi was Venugrama — or Velugrama — long before it was Belagavi: literally the bamboo village, for the venu that grew thickly here. It is among the oldest cities in Karnataka and the largest in area, and its recorded antiquity runs back to the 2nd century AD.

• A zone of transition

  The district sits where Karnataka meets Maharashtra and Goa, and it has taken something from each. What the department calls a zone of cultural transition shows up in the food, the language on the street and the festivals — Marathi and Konkani inflections folded into a Kannada culture rather than sitting beside it.

• The freedom struggle

  Belagavi is bound up with the fight for independence. Kittur Rani Chennamma raised her revolt against the East India Company here in 1824, three decades before 1857. A century later, in December 1924, the district hosted the 39th session of the Indian National Congress — the only session Mahatma Gandhi ever presided over. The Congress Well, dug to water the delegates, still stands.

• The district today

  It is a district of art, literature, spirituality, education, industry and sport. Visvesvaraya Technological University is based here, and every technical and engineering college in Karnataka comes under it.

The district’s story above is drawn from the Department of Tourism’s own pages at karnatakatourism.org, read on 20 September 2026.