Gavaras, Gowri puthrulu, Gowriyulu or Gavara Naidu are one of the many small communities or caste of Andhra who live mostly in the north coastal districts. Large concentrations of Gavara population are distributed in and around Anakapalle in Visakhapatnam district. A few isolated villages in Vizianagaram, East Godavari and West Godavaridistricts are also inhabited by Gavaras. There is a significant population in Tamil Nadu as well. A large number of Gavara families from these villages migrated to other parts of India mainly as Railway employees and workers in Steel factories.

The prominent towns in other states with sizeable Gavara population are Jamshedpur/Tatanagar (Jharkhand) and Kharagpur (West Bengal). During British rule, Gavaras spread to Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Mauritius, Fiji and South Africa. In more recent decades, educated Gavaras moved into higher jobs in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and abroad. Gavara population in the United States of America grew in leaps and bound in the 1990s onwards compared to a handful of families until the 1980s.

A similarly named Kavarai community is prominent in southern Andhra and Tamil Nadu. Although they share a common name and profession the Kavarai are related to the Balija Naidu community.Both the communities are not connected and there is very little social interaction between them