Tarn Taran was carved out of Amritsar in 2006. Its tehsils are Tarn Taran, Patti and Khadur Sahib, and it runs down to the border at Khemkaran and Bhikhiwind.
It holds Tarn Taran's sarovar and gurdwara founded by Guru Arjan Dev Ji, Khadur Sahib, Goindwal with its baoli, Harike where the Beas meets the Sutlej, Sarai Amanat Khan, and Sarhali, the village of Baba Gurdit Singh of the Komagata Maru.
It is agricultural, with basmati in the north and heavy paddy elsewhere, and it has among the highest emigration rates in the Majha along with the highest rates of army recruitment.
The 1965 tank battle at Asal Uttar was fought in this district. So was a good deal of the 1971 western fighting.
What is not recorded: the villages the Komagata Maru passengers came from, most of which were in this district and the ones around it, and the border belt's land beyond the fence.
The sarovar at Tarn Taran is the largest of any Sikh shrine, and the town grew around it. A leprosy hospital founded beside it in the nineteenth century is still working.
The district has no city. Its largest town is under a hundred thousand people, which makes it one of the most purely rural districts in the state and is part of why its services are thin.
It has land beyond the fence, high military recruitment, high emigration and among the worst drug indicators in the state, which is the standard profile of the border belt.