Ludhiana is Punjab's largest district by population and its industrial centre. Its tehsils are Ludhiana East and West, Jagraon, Khanna, Samrala, Payal and Raikot.
Its industry is knitwear, bicycles and parts, machine tools, and the trades around them, in thousands of small units employing a largely migrant workforce.
It holds Punjab Agricultural University, the Kila Raipur rural games, Machhiwara, Alamgir, Raikot, Sarabha, Jagraon's Roshni mela, Doraha and Dakhni serais, Khanna's grain market, Bhaini Sahib the Namdhari centre, and Narangwal.
The Buddha Nullah runs through the city and into the Sutlej and is one of the worst pollution problems in India.
It is where the Green Revolution's science was done and where its consequences are studied.
What is not recorded: the migrant workforce's numbers and conditions, the small-unit industrial economy in any statistical detail, and the district's village histories outside the famous half dozen.
Kila Raipur, the rural games held each February, run bullock cart races, tent pegging and feats of strength, and they draw the diaspora back every year.
Punjab Agricultural University bred the wheat and rice varieties the Green Revolution ran on and its extension service reached every block. Its budget and its standing have both fallen since.
Raikot, Jagraon, Samrala, Khanna and Payal are the district's other towns. Khanna's grain market has been described as the largest in Asia by volume.