CIRCAR is an Indian term applied to the component parts of a Subah or province, each of which is administered by a deputy-governor. In English it is principally employed in the name of the Northern Circars, used to designate a now obsolete division of the Madras presidency, which consisted of a narrow slip of territory lying along the western side of the Bay of Bengal from 15° 40' to 20° 17' N. lat. These Northern Circars were five in number, Cicacole, Rajamundry, El]ore, Condapilly, and Guntoor, and their total area was about 30,000 square miles. The district corresponds in the main to that now occupied by the modern divisions of Guntoor, Masulipatam, Rajamundry, Vizagapatam, and Gunjam. It was first invaded by the Mahometans in 1471; in I541 they conquered Condapiny, and nine years later they extended their conquests over all Guntoor and the districts of Masulipatam. But the invaders appear to have acquired only an imperfect possession of the country, as it was again wrested from the Hindu princes of Orissa about the year 1571, during the reign of Ibrahim Kutub, shah of Hyderabad or Golcondah. In 1687 the Circars were added, along with the empire of Hyderabad, to the extensive empire of Aurungzebe. Salabut Jung, the son of Nizam ul Mulk, who was indebted for his elevation to the throne to the French East India Company, granted them in return for their services the district of Condavir or Guntoor, and soon afterwards the other Circars. In 1759, by the conquest of the fortress of Masulipatam, the dominion of the maritime provinces on both sides, from the River Gondegama to the Chilca, Lake, was necessarily transferred from the French to the British. But the latter left them under the administration of the Nizam, with the exception of the town and fortress of Masulipatam, which were retained by the English East India Company. In 1765 Lord Clive obtained from the Mogul a grant of four of the Circars, which in the following year was confirmed by a treaty entered into with Nizam Ali, who had by this time superseded Salabut Jung in his authority. The remaining Circar of Guntoor devolved to the East India Company in 1788.