Pune district (Marathi pronunciation: [puɳeː]) is the most populous district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The district's population was 9,429,408 in the 2011 census, making it the fourth most populous district amongst India's 640 districts. This district has an urban population of 58.08 percent of its total. It is one of the most industrialized districts in India. In recent decades it has also become a hub for information technology. History The district has a long human history. The town of Junnar and the Buddhist caves at Karla date back more than two thousand years, and visitors to Junnar were recorded in the 1400s. The region was under Islamic rule from the 13th to the 17th centuries. During the 17th century, the Marathas under Shivaji laid the foundation for an independent kingdom. The Peshwas, who ruled the expanded Maratha empire, established their headquarters in the small town of Pune and developed it into a large city. The city and district became part of the British Raj in the 19th century. Many early Indian nationalists and Marathi social reformers came from the city. Ancient and medieval history According to archaeological discoveries of the Jorwe culture in Chandoli and Inamgaon, portions of the district have been occupied by humans since the Chalcolithic (the Copper Age, 5th–4th millennium BCE). Many ancient trade routes linking ports in western India (particularly those of coastal Konkan) with the Deccan Plateau pass through the district. The town of Junnar has been an important trading and political center for the last two thousand years, and it was first mentioned by Greco-Roman travellers in the early first millennium CE. The Karla Caves in Karli, near Lonavala, are near the Western Ghats and a major ancient trade route running eastward from the Arabian Sea to the Deccan Plateau. The caves are a complex of ancient Indian Buddhist rock-cut shrines which were developed from the second century BCE to the fifth century CE; the oldest of the shrines is believed to date to 160 BCE. Traders and Satvahana rulers financed construction of the caves. Buddhists, identified with commerce and manufacturing through their early association with traders, tended to locate their monasteries in natural formations near major trade routes to provide lodging for travelling traders. Inscriptions at Karla and Junnar suggest that in the early part of the Common Era, the area was controlled by the Shaka ruler Nahapana. Coins found further