Kotkhai

Kotkhai is a town and a Nagar Panchayat in Shimla district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.The name Kotkhai is derived from Hindi language where the name "Kot" means Kings Palace and "Khai" means trench, therefore "Kotkhai" means "Kings palace situated in trench". It is a tehsil with around 40 villages under its administration. The whole tehsil is known for quality apple production. Kotkhai is also known for its fairs and traditional values, people of Kotkhai are really devotional towards Devtas where each villages believes in different forms of Devtas (also known as Dev Bhoomi).

==History== Initially Kotkhai was a princely state of the British Raj and was founded around the 12th century AD, by the descendants of Kartar Singh (younger brother of Rana Kirat Singh, "founder of Kumharsain state"). In the beginning, Khaneti, Kotkhai and Kotgarh was jointly ruled by the descendants of Kartar Singh for five generations, until Dooni Singh and Shimal Singh divided the territories into Khaneti and Kotkhai-Kotgarh respectively. Before 19th century AD, Kotkhai was a tributary of Kumharsain State and Princely family of Kotkhai is a junior branch of Princely family of Kumharsain. Kotkhai was incorporated into British India in January 1828 and later to India in 1947.