Chak, a Punjabi word, is the land revenue settlement/assessment circle marking a contiguous block of land. The word Chak comes from Chakar referring to a wheel in Urdu, specifically a wheel associated with a water well. Historically there was one water well allotted per village and every village number allotted as per water-well wheel. Now the individual chak circles have come to be associated with the name of the village founded within the revenue circle. Chak circles are based on the British Raj era revenue collection system. To enhance the government revenue during the British Raj, new canals were built to bring the barani (rainfed) areas under cultivation by introducing the irrigation to the bangar (upland) areas of Punjab region. Block of contiguous land irrigated by the specific Rajwaha were given a unique chak number each. The migrant farmers were brought in to settle into those newly irrigated areas around the core of new villages [which started out as dhanis]. Those new villages were called by the same name as their corresponding irrigation circle chak number. Government left it to those residents to give "chaks" a proper village name later. In due time, the term "chak" became synonymous with the term "village". Chaks are found mainly in the bagar tract on the tri-junction of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab region. Chak, the administrative revenue assessment circle or division, is also called the Chakla, which is not to be confused with the other types of Chaklas. Nomenclature The villages are named using a four-part British colonial era nomenclature: "Chak (number) (letters) (village name)". Variations exist but usually names of chak have four parts, "Chak" prefix, Number, a unique number for each village, Letter, one or two letter which correspond to the code given to the specific source of water, such as the Rajwaha (irrigation channel), Village name, settlements usually started out as the small dhanis which later evolved into the villages. The name of settlement is usually based on the name of village's founding chowdhury, gotra or jathera. Examples of four-part nomenclature are "Chak 106 JB Khichian" (JB denotes Jhang Branch canal), "Chak 445 GB Thaggan Wali" (GB denotes Gogera Branch canal) and "Chak 354/WB Dunyapur". other example Chak 236 GB Kilanwala (GB denotes Gugera Branch Canal) Examples of chak names with first three components of the four-part nomenclature are Chak 152 P (P denotes the Panjnad River from which they draw