Barnala was made a district in 2006 out of Sangrur. Its tehsils are Barnala, Tapa and Bhadaur.
It was the seat of the Phulkian chiefs before Patiala was founded in 1763.
It holds Dhaula, the village of the novelist Ram Sarup Ankhi, and Raisar, the village of the poet Sant Ram Udasi, and Sehna, the village of Lance Naik Karam Singh, one of the first Param Vir Chakra recipients.
It is cotton and wheat country with the agrarian distress profile of the southern Malwa.
It is one of the smaller districts and among the least written about.
What is not recorded: essentially the whole district. Three of the most significant Punjabi figures of the twentieth century came from three of its villages and there is no district-level record of any of them.
Barnala town was the seat of the Phulkian chief Baba Ala Singh Ji before Patiala was founded, and the old fort quarter of the town still carries the name.
The economy is farm based on a cotton and wheat cycle, with the ginning and the grain trade in the towns. There is a small industrial belt at Barnala itself, including a large tyre plant.
Barnala is a centre of the Punjabi left and the peasant and labour unions in the district are among the strongest in the state.