Sri Muktsar Sahib was made a district in 1995. Its tehsils are Muktsar, Malout, Gidderbaha and Giddarbaha's surrounding country.
It holds the site of the 1705 battle at Khidrana where the Chali Mukte died, and the Maghi mela in January, one of the largest gatherings in the Malwa.
It is cotton and paddy country in the south-west, with waterlogging and salinity problems and canal water arriving at the tail of the system.
It is a centre of the Punjabi jutti trade, at Muktsar and Malout.
Its agrarian distress figures are among the highest in Punjab and it is in the belt the cancer train reporting is about.
What is not recorded: the jutti trade's workforce and earnings, and the district's waterlogged area, which is reported inconsistently.
The Maghi mela at Muktsar in January is among the largest gatherings in Punjab, drawing several lakh people to the Darbar Sahib and the sarovar, and it is also the traditional occasion for political conferences held by every major party in the state.
The jutti trade is concentrated in Muktsar town and in Malout and is largely a household industry, the embroidery done by women at home and the assembly and sale by families that have done it for generations. It sells across north India and abroad through the diaspora.
The south west of the district has the shallow water table and the salinity that come from canal irrigation on land that does not drain, and the belt running from here into Fazilka and Bathinda is where the cotton failures and the debt cases are concentrated.