Singhbhum was once a large district in the present-day Indian state of Bihar. Chaibasa was the district headquarters of the erstwhile Singhbhum district. Earlier this area was a part of Odisha's Gajapati Empire. In the 19th Century this area became a part of the Chota Nagpur Division of Bengal Presidency in British India.
That district has in recent decades been divided into three smaller districts, being East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Saraikela Kharsawan. All the three are currently part of Jharkhand state of India. The major Indian languages spoken in this region are Oriya, Bengali, Kurmali, Hindi and other tribal languages
