Sind, or SINDH (also spelt Sinde and Scinde), a province in the north-west of British India, belongs to the presidency of Bombay, and is bounded on the N. by Beluchistan and the Punjab, E. by Rajputana, W. by Beluchistan, and S. by the Indian Ocean and the Runn of Cutch. It contains an area of 56,632 sq. m., with a pop. (1891) of 2,900,000. The seacoast (150 miles) is very low and flat, with the exception of the small portion beyond Karachi (Kurrachee), and is studded with low mud-banks formed by the Indus or with sandhills, the accumulated drift from the beach. The province is traversed from north to south by the Indus (whence the name; see INDIA, Vol. VI. p. 98), and includes the whole of its delta. Along each bank of the river is an alluvial tract of great fertility, from 2 to 12 miles wide, and mostly irrigated by artificial canals and watercourses, which, overflowing during the inundations, cover the soil with a silt so rich as to yield two, and sometimes three, crops in a year. The soil, nevertheless, contains in the north so much salt-petre, and in the south so much salt, that after the year's crops have been obtained these substances are extracted for home consumption and export. Between the Indus and its most easterly branch, the Nara, is an alluvial 'doab,' which, from want of irrigation, has become almost a desert. East of this is the Thur, a desert of shifting sand. West of the Indus the country is occupied by the desert of Shikarpur on the north, a desert not of sand, but of alluvial clay, the same as that of the delta, which only requires irrigation to render it fertile; and in the south it is traversed by the Hala Mountains. The climate is remarkably sultry and dry, the province being beyond the action of the southwest monsoon; during the long summer the thermometer averages 95° F., and ranges up to 120°; in winter it falls below freezing-point and rises to 80°. There are generally two harvests per annum; the first, or rabi ('spring') harvest, consists of wheat, barley, indigo, oil-seeds, gram, hemp, and tobacco; the second, or kharif ('autumn') harvest, of rice, millet, oil-seeds, pulses, and cotton. The population consists of the native Sindis, with a large sprinkling of Beluchis and Afghans; the greater portion of them are Mohammedans of the Sunnite faith. The population are almost wholly engaged in agriculture. The trade of the province is concentrated at Kurrachee (q.v.), the capital. Raw cotton, wool, and various grains are the principal exports. Besides Kurrachee (pop. in 1891, 104,250), there are the large towns of Hyderabad (57,790), Shikarpur, Larkhana, and Sukknr.
About 712 A.D. Sind was conquered by Mohammed Kasim, the general of the calif, and since that time has been almost entirely ruled by Mohammedan princes. About 871 the califs lost their hold upon this province, which became divided between the two native kingdoms of Multan and Mansura. In 1026 Sind was conquered by an officer of Mahmud of Ghazni, but the conquest was not at all a permanent one. A new native dynasty was founded in 1051, and was followed by others in 1351 and 1521. In 1592 the country was conquered by Akbar, the Mogul emperor of Delhi; and in 1739 it was incorporated in the dominions of Nadir Shah of Persia. Under Persian suzerainty Sind was governed by various native dynasties. The rulers of Sind always regarded the British with suspicion, and not without reason, for on the outbreak of the Afghan war in 1838 the British government forced the chiefs of Hyderabad and Khairpur to agree to a treaty which virtually destroyed their independence. And when their Beluchi subjects, resenting this arrangement, took up arms, Sir Charles Napier marched against them, totally routed them at Meeanee (17th February 1843), and at Dabo, near Hyderabad (March 24th), and annexed their territories. The British administrators have directed their chief efforts to the development of the commerce of the country, principally by the construction of the Indus Valley Railway and the harbour-works at Kurrachee (q.v.).
See five volumes by Sir R. Burton (1851-77), and A. W. Hugh's Gazetteer of the Province of Sind (1876).