The district is located in the Eastern Ghats and is known for its hilly terrain, rich and diverse mineral deposits and its tribal culture.

The district headquarters town of Koraput and its largest city, Jeypore are major centres of trade and commerce for South Odisha and located on an important road connecting Visakhapatnam to Raipur.

Another opinion is often found that the term Kora was the name of a Sun God who was worshipped by the local tribals in ancient times.

About twenty one villages in the Kotia Gram Panchayat are the subject of a long pending territorial dispute with the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Its location in the hills, isolation from means of communication and the dense forests all around served to keep the district politically separate from the nearby plains on both sides.

This suzerainty later passed to the Mughals, the Nizam of Hyderabad and finally descended to the East India Company when the Northern Circars were ceded to them by Emperor Shah Alam in 1765.

After cession, the district formed a part of the Madras Presidency but was largely left in the hands of the local Zamindars owing to its remote location.

For administrative purposes, the entire area from the foothills of the Eastern Ghats to the boundaries of Bastar State was added to the Visakhapatnam District.

The Collector of the District functioned in an additional capacity as Agent to the Governor of Madras in this area and exercised significant powers of criminal justice, revenue and civil law.

The plateau itself is marked by undulating hills and valleys through which numerous streams run down to join the Indravati to the north and the tributaries of the Godavari to the south.

The plateau gradually slopes west towards Bastar and falls through another ring of hills to the lower plains of Malkangiri to the south.

The Indravati rises in Kalahandi District and is dammed immediately afterwards, forming a large reservoir - the backwaters of which have cut off certain villages in Dasmantapur Block of Koraput.

The river then forms the boundary between Koraput and Nabarangpur district throughout before entering Chhattisgarh near Nagarnar, slightly north of the main Jeypore-Jagdalpur road.

The massive reservoir has a catchment area of 1630 sq km and spans the Sadar, Semiliguda and Nandapur blocks of the district.

After the dam, the river descends onto the 2000 feet plateau at Bagra near Jeypore through a small cataract before flowing north west and then suddenly south in Kundura block.

He supervises the functioning of the BDOs directly and reports to the Collector who is ex officio Chief Executive Officer of the Zila Parishad.

According to the 2011 census Koraput district has a population of 1,379,647,[4] roughly equal to the nation of Eswatini[5] or the US state of Hawaii.

[7] The largest tribe in the current district are the Parojas, literally meaning "subject", a generic term applying to many different tribal communities in Koraput.

A large number of tribals of the district have adopted non-tribal languages as Odia is the medium of instruction in Government schools.

However, the village of Thuba in Nandapur block has a community that is native to the district and is probably descended from demobilised Qutb Shahi soldiers who had invaded Koraput around the 16th century.

Generally crops grown during Rabi like Paddy, Wheat, Maize, Ragi, Mung, Biri, Groundnut, Mustard, Field Pea, Sunflower etc.

The people of Koraput district, notably the adivasis have generated and conserved many indigenous cultivars of rice that are suitable for both dryland and wetland cultivation.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in 2012 recognised the service of the communities of Koraput in ensuring food security by declaring the Koraput district as a Global Agricultural Heritage Site There are only five Large Scale industries located in the district manufacturing & Processing Alumina, Paper, Cement, Aeronautical Engine & hydro electricity.

The general pattern of non-agricultural employment, however, leans heavily towards small-scale and household industries The principal economic mineral deposits of Koraput district are Limestone & Bauxite, besides this, occurrence of China clay, Nepheline Synite, Gold, Black & Multi colored rocks named as Decorative Stone are also found in this district.

The inaccessible hilly terrain, dense forests, lack of development, grievances of the tribals and poor, and the absence of administration have been conducive to the spread of left-wing extremism in Odisha.

The seriousness of the problem was underlined by a co-ordinated Naxalite attack on the District Headquarters and armoury at Koraput on February 6, 2004.

[18] Owing to its hilly terrain, transport in Koraput is dependent upon certain trunk roads that climb up the passes on the Eastern Ghats.

It then descends onto the 3000 feet plateau and passes Pottangi and Kunduli before meeting the alternative road to Vishakhapatnam through Araku at Similiguda.

The road then passes Koraput and descends through a steep ghat to Jeypore before going straight north through Borigumma to Nabarangpur.

Jaivik Sri Farmers Producer Company Limited from Pujariput, proposed the GI registration of Koraput Kalajeera rice.