Chirala

Revenue division per the OFFICIAL Bapatla district site: Chirala. Bapatla district now has 20 mandals. CONFLICT ON REVENUE DIVISIONS: the Wikipedia Bapatla district page describes THREE divisions (Bapatla 6 mandals, Chirala 5, Repalle 9), while the official district site (last updated 6 Aug 2026) shows only TWO (Bapatla 12, Chirala 8) and treats Repalle as an assembly constituency rather than a revenue division. ALSO NOTE: the official site's prose still says 'Bapatla District Consists of 25 Mandals' while its own table lists only 20 - the prose is stale, left over from before the Addanki area (Addanki, Ballikurava, J. Panguluru, Korisapadu, Santhamaguluru) moved to Prakasam district effective 1 Jan 2026. Mandal listed by cited source. The source does not explicitly name the mandal headquarters settlement; AP mandals are conventionally named after their HQ village but this was not independently confirmed, so the HQ is not asserted here. ORIGIN: this mandal is generally understood to have come from Prakasam district in the 2022 reorganisation, but NO source consulted states the transfer explicitly - it is inferred only from the mandal appearing on Bapatla district's official mandal list. Treat the origin as UNCITED. | ALSO: ULB TYPE: Municipality; Chirala revenue division. CONFLICT: the Chirala town Wikipedia article gives 172,000 (2011) and calls it 'first grade', while List of municipalities in Andhra Pradesh calls it 'Special Grade'. DISTRICT ORIGIN: Chirala was in Prakasam district before the 2022 reorganisation and is now in Bapatla district; NO source consulted states the transfer explicitly - it is inferred from Chirala appearing on Bapatla district's official mandal list at https://bapatla.ap.gov.in/tehsil/ . Treat the Prakasam-to-Bapatla transfer as UNCITED. | TRADE: Wikipedia names handloom weaving as one of the city's main industries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirala) - the cloth trade is the economic base of its merchant population, though the page gives no market or guild detail. Chirala came into Bapatla district from Prakasam in the 2022 reorganisation; that transfer is INFERRED from Chirala now appearing on Bapatla's official mandal list and is not directly stated by any source reached.