INTRODUCTION
It is said that Samba was principality established somewhere in 1400 A.D. As per folklore Malh Dev, the younger son of Rai Saidu of Lakhanpur was the founder of Samba principality, who married into the family of Ghotar a local tribesman. After his marriage he stayed at Samba and made himself the master of the tract with Samba as its capital. Samba ultimately came under the supremacy of Jammu, during the period of Hari Dev, in 1816 A.D. and in 1846 A.D. it became an integral part of the J&K State.

Vide Government order no.1345-GAD of 2006 dated 27.10.2006, among other districts, district Samba came into operation. It comprises 382 villages as per the notification issued by the Govt. under SRO No.185 dated 22nd of May 2007. These villages have been organized into 55 Patwar Halquas, and 99 Panchayats. Out of 382 villages, 62 villages have been detached from Tehsil Hiranagar of district Kathua and one village from Tehsil Majalta of District Udhampur. Besides, four urban towns viz. Samba, Vijaypur, Ramgarh and Bari Brahmna are also the part of this district.

LOCATION, CLIMATE & GEOGRAPHY
Samba town is situated on range of Shivalik hills alongside the National Highway 1-A / on the bank of river Basantar at a distance of forty kms from Jammu city. Tehsil Samba is bounded by District Udhampur in the North, District Kathua in the East, Tehsils Jammu and Bishnah of District Jammu in the west, while on the southern side it has International Border with Pakistan. About two third of the area of Tehsil Samba is Kandi & rain fed. The area on southern side downside the national highway is irrigated through Ravi Tawi Irrigation canal network and contributing towards major cereals crop and vegetable cultivation as special focus has been assigned by the govt. of India, Ministry of Water Resources through Command Area Development Department.

A modern industrial complex is established on the bank of river Basantar at Samba named as Industrial Growth Center. A number of small & medium industrial units have been established and have provided job opportunities not only to the educated unemployed youths, but also to the labourers, skilled and un-skilled by starting their own ventures in the private sector.

To protect the traditional art of the area, the Government has established a Handloom Development Project at Samba and is providing employment opportunities to a large number of traditional weavers of Samba town and they are earning their livelihood by way of weaving of clothes for the project. Samba is also famous in traditional Calico Printing, where local made dyes are used for printing locally weaved cotton fabric

CLIMATE
The climate of the district being sub tropical zone is hot and dry in summer and cold in winter. Being in the foot hills of the mountains nights are bit cooler than that of neighbouring areas of Punjab. The temperature ranges between 6 degree Celsius and 47 degree Celsius.

POPULATION
As per 2001 Census, the total population is 2.86 lakh, which includes 1.51 lac male population and 1.35lac female population in the district. This works out to be 2.75% of the total population of the state. The urban population is of 0.61 lac and the rural population figures at 2.25 lac souls and comes to 78.67% of the population of the district. The density of the population is 317 per sq km. The schedule castes represent 31% of the population while schedule tribes i. e. Gujjar and Bakerwals represent 4% only of the total population of the District. The main stay of the population of the districts is agriculture and service in defence