Great famine 1876

The Great Famine of 1876–1878 was a famine in India under British Crown rule.

 It began in 1876 after an intense drought resulted in crop failure in the Deccan Plateau.

 It affected southand South-western India—the British-administered presidencies of Madras and Bombay, and the princely states of Mysore and Hyderabad—for a period of two years.

 In 1877, famine came to affect regions northward, including parts of the Central Provincesand the North-Western Provinces, and a small area in  Punjab.

The famine ultimately affected an area of 670,000 square kilometres (257,000 sq mi) and caused distress to a population totalling 58,500,000.The excess mortality in the famine has been estimated in a range whose low end is 5.6 million human fatalities, high end 9.6 million fatalities, and a careful modern demographic estimate 8.2 million fatalities.

The famine is also known as the Southern India famine of 1876–1878 and the Madras famine of 1877.