Cutch (Kachchh), a protected principality under the government of Bombay, stretches along the Gulf of Cutch and the Indian Ocean between Gujarat and Sind. Excluding the Rann of Cutch, it is 160 miles long from E. to W., and 30 to 70 broad from N. to S. The state, exclusive of the Rann, consists of 6500 sq. m., is the belt on the seashore, touching Sind, of which it may be regarded as a physical continuation, on the north-west, and being separated by a detached portion of the Rann from Gujarat on the south-east. While the southern edge of this belt is merely a sandy desert, the northern section, traversed lengthwise by two parallel ranges of hills, presents, amid much sterility, many fertile tracts, which yield cotton, rice, &c., and feed a large stock of horses, kine, buffaloes, and camels. The grand defect of the country is the scarcity of water. The mineral productions are coal, iron, and alum. The traces of volcanic action are numerous, and earthquakes also have recently occurred, as in 1819, 1844, 1845, 1864; that of 1819, besides shaking every fortified city to its foundations, and destroying many hundred lives, changed the level of part of the Rann. The population of the state, according to the census of 1891, was 558,415, being 86 individuals to a square mile. The ruler is styled the Rao; and the feudatory chieftains under him are about 200. The capital is Bhúj.
The Rann or Runn of Cutch—subdivided into two parts, the smaller, of nearly 2000 sq. m., on the east, and the larger, of 7000 sq. m., on the north—is a desert, being mainly caked, hard ground during the dry season, and then in turn a sort of shallow lake formed by the heavy rains and pent-up tides of the south-west monsoon. It is supposed to have been originally a permanent inlet of the ocean, and to have had its level raised by some such convulsion of nature as that which marked the year 1819. The periodical disappearance of the waters leaves behind it one continuous crust of salt. This dreary waste has a few elevated spots on which a little vegetation grows. Herds of wild asses and clouds of flies are its only inhabitants. The sea is at present advancing into the little Rann year by year. For the substance called Cutch, see CATECHU.