Chitradurga gets its name from Chitrakaldurga, an umbrella-shaped lofty hill found there.

Tradition dates Chitradurga District to the period of the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

According to the 2011 census Chitradurga district has a population of 1,659,456,[5] roughly equal to the nation of Guinea-Bissau[6] or the US state of Idaho.

[5] At the time of the 2011 census, 83.33% of the population spoke Kannada, 7.33% Urdu, 5.39% Telugu and 2.29% Lambadi as their first language.

[9] In 2006 the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Chitradurga one of the country's 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640).