Purba Medinipur district

Purba Medinipur (English: East Medinipur, alternative spelling Midnapore) district is an administrative unit in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the southernmost district of Medinipur division – one of the five administrative divisions of West Bengal. The headquarters is Tamluk. It was formed on 1 January 2002 after the Partition of Medinipur into East Midnapore and West Midnapore which lies at the northern and western border of it. The state of Odisha is at the southwest border; the Bay of Bengal lies in the south; the Hooghly River and South 24 Parganas district to the east; Howrah district to the north-east; West Midnapore district to the west.

East Midnapore comprises the sub-divisions of Tamluk, Contai and Haldia of erstwhile Medinipur district. Another sub-division, Egra has been created out of the erstwhile Contai sub-division during the partition of Midnapore. In 2011, the state government proposed to rename the district as Tamralipta district after the ancient port city of Tamralipta which used to lie near the modern district headquarters.

East Midnapore saw many political movements during the British Raj. A parallel government named the Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar was formed during the Quit India Movement in Tamluk. In 2007, East Midnapore witnessed the Nandigram violence, an incident of police firing that killed 14 farmers.