Shakargarh became a tehsil in 1853. Its literacy rate is 97 percent.
Sialkot was annexed by the British after the
Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849. In 1853, Shakargarh Tehsil of
Sialkot district was transferred to
Gurdaspur District and it remained an administrative subdivision of Gurdaspur district until the
Partition in 1947. Under the
Radcliffe Award, three of the four
tehsils of Gurdaspur district on the eastern bank of the Ujh river (which joined the Ravi a little further down) – Gurdaspur, Batala and Pathankot – were awarded to India and only one, Shakargarh, was assigned to Pakistan. After the creation of Pakistan, Shakargarh became a part of Sialkot district once again. In July 1991, two
tehsils (Narowal and Shakargarh) were split off from Sialkot district and Shakargarh became a
tehsil of the newly formed
Narowal district. The
Imperial Gazetteer of India, written over a hundred years ago during British rule, describes Shakargarh as follows:
Tahsīl of Gurdāspur District, Punjab, lying between 32°2' and 32° 30' N. and 74° 57' and 75° 23' E., with an area of . The Ravi divides it from the rest of the District to the south, while on the north it touches Jammu territory. West of the narrow lowlands along the Ravi, the country is an arid expanse of rolling downs intersected by torrent beds. The population in 1901 was 234,465, compared with 250,336 in 1891. It contains 703 villages, of which Shakargarh is the headquarters. The land revenue and
cesses in 1903-4 amounted to Rs. 4,29,000. ==Administration==