Dewas, city, west-central Madhya Pradesh state, central India. It is located on the Malwa Plateau at the foot of the conical Chamunda Hill, which rises to the Devi Vashini shrine.
The earliest reference to Dewas occurs in the 12th-century epic poem Prithviraj Rasau by Chand Bardai of Lahore (now in Pakistan). Dewas was a small village during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar. It was founded by two Panwar Maratha brothers who entered the Malwa region in 1728. From 1841 the senior and junior branches of the family ruled their own portions independently as part of the British Central India Agency. Both of those states merged with Madhya Pradesh in 1956.
Dewas is a major road junction and agricultural trade centre. Cotton and flour milling, hand-loom weaving, and soap manufacture are the city’s chief industries. Dewas has a musical academy and a government college of education affiliated with Vikram University in Ujjain. Jain and Hindu temple ruins lie just south of the city, in Nagara. The surrounding area consists chiefly of level plains of the Malwa Plateau, watered by the Narmada, Sipra (Shipra), and Kali Sindh rivers. Wheat, sorghum (jowar), rice, cotton, and oilseeds are the chief crops. Pop. (2001) city, 231,672; (2011) 289,550.