Asansol is the 78th most populous city of India with a total population of 5,63,917. Asansol is a city in the Paschim Barddhaman district of West Bengal and the highest employment in the district is in Agriculture, Cotton textile, Wool, Silk, Leather and other household industries. The district has 45% of the workforce employed in the Agricultural Sector, 51% in the Industrial Sector and the remaining 4% are Household workers. Asansol is a cosmopolitan city located on the lower Chota Nagpur Plateau, which occupies most of Jharkhand, between the Damodar and Ajay rivers. Another river, the Barakar, joins the Damodar near Dishergarh. A small rivulet, Nunia, flows past Asansol. The major field crops are Rice, Jute, Potato, Oilseeds. Apart from these, horticultural crops like Mango, Banana, Brinjal, Cabbage, Cucurbits are also produced. "Asan" a species of tree which generally grows thirty meters tall, is found on the banks of Damodar River. "Sol" on the other hand refers to land. The name "Asansol" is a combination of these two words "Asan" and "Sol". The region saw an initial settlement of the Dravidian and the Australoid. Notable Jain activities were exercised around two thousand five hundred years ago in this region which is apparent from the Jain temples that are present in Pareshnath hill in neighbouring state Jharkhand. It is believed that Mahavira Vardhamana who was the last Tirthankar of Jain religion used to live and work here. Subsequently, the region was believed to have been a part of the kingdom of Vishnupur where the Malla dynasty ruled for approximately a thousand years till the emergence of the British.
