States and territories of India

India is a federal union comprising twenty-nine states and seven Union Territories. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and further into smaller administrative divisions. For most practical purposes, Union Territories are like states; the main difference is direct rule by the national government.

Responsibilities and authorities

The Constitution of India distributes the sovereign executive and legislative powers exercisable with respect to the territory of any State between the Union and that State.

History

Pre-independence

The Indian subcontinent has been ruled by many different ethnic groups throughout its history, each instituting their own policies of administrative division in the region. During the British Raj, the original administrative structure was mostly kept, and India was divided into provinces (also called Presidencies) that were directly governed by the British and princely states which were nominally controlled by a local prince or raja loyal to the British Empire, which held de facto sovereignty (suzerainty) over the princely states.

1947–1950

Between 1947 and 1950, the territories of the princely states were politically integrated into the Indian Union. Most were merged into existing provinces; others were organised into new provinces, such as Rajputana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Bharat, and Vindhya Pradesh, made up of multiple princely states; a few, including Mysore, Hyderabad, Bhopal, and Bilaspur, became separate provinces. The new Constitution of India, which came into force on 26 January 1950, made India a sovereign democratic republic. The new republic was also declared to be a "Union of States".[12] The constitution of 1950 distinguished between three main types of states:

Administrative division of India in 1951

• Part A states, which were the former governors' provinces of British India, were ruled by an elected governor and state legislature. The nine Part A states were Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh (formerly Central Provinces and Berar), Madras, Orissa, Punjab (formerly East Punjab), Uttar Pradesh (formerly the United Provinces), and West Bengal.
• The eight Part B states were former princely states or groups of princely states, governed by a rajpramukh, who was usually the ruler of a constituent state, and an elected legislature. The rajpramukh was appointed by the President of India. The Part B states were Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Bharat, Mysore, Patiala and East Punjab States Union (PEPSU), Rajasthan, Saurashtra, and Travancore-Cochin.
• The ten Part C states included both the former chief commissioners' provinces and some princely states, and each was governed by a chief commissioner appointed by the President of India. The Part C states were Ajmer, Bhopal, Bilaspur, Coorg, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Cutch, Manipur, Tripura, and Vindhya Pradesh.
• The only Part D state was the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which were administered by a lieutenant governor appointed by the central government.

States reorganization (1951–1956)

The Union Territory of Puducherry was created in 1954 comprising the previous French enclaves of Pondichéry, Karaikal, Yanam and Mahé.[13] Andhra State was created on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking northern districts of Madras State.

The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 reorganised the states based on linguistic lines resulting in the creation of the new states.[15] As a result of this act, Madras State retained its name with Kanyakumari district added to from Travancore-Cochin. Andhra Pradesh was created with the merger of Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State in 1956. Kerala was created with the merger of Malabar district and the Kasaragod taluk of South Canara districts of Madras State with Travancore-Cochin. Mysore State was re-organized with the addition of districts of Bellary and South Canara (excluding Kasaragod taluk) and the Kollegal taluk of Coimbatore district from the Madras State, the districts of Belgaum, Bijapur, North Canara and Dharwad from Bombay State, the Kannada-majority districts of Bidar, Raichur and Gulbarga from Hyderabad State and the province of Coorg. The Laccadive Islands which were divided between South Canara and Malabar districts of Madras State were united and organised into the union territory of Lakshadweep.

Bombay State was enlarged by the addition of Saurashtra State and Kutch State, the Marathi-speaking districts of Nagpur Division of Madhya Pradesh and Marathwada region of Hyderabad State. Rajasthan and Punjab gained territories from Ajmer and Patiala and East Punjab States Union respectively and certain territories of Bihar was transferred to West Bengal.

Post-1956

Bombay State was split into the linguistic states of Gujarat and Maharashtra on 1 May 1960 by the Bombay Reorganisation Act. Nagaland was formed on 1 December 1963. The Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 resulted in the creation of Haryana on 1 November and the transfer of the northern districts of Punjab to Himachal Pradesh. The act also designated Chandigarh as a union territory and the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana.

Madras state was renamed Tamil Nadu in 1968. North-eastern states of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura were formed on 21 January 1972. Mysore State was renamed as Karnataka in 1973. On 16 May 1975, Sikkim became the 22nd state of the Indian Union and the state's monarchy was abolished. In 1987, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram became states on 20 February, followed by Goa on 30 May, while Goa's northern exclaves of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli became separate union territories.

In November 2000, three new states were created namely, Chhattisgarh from eastern Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal from northwest Uttar Pradesh (renamed Uttarakhand in 2007) and Jharkhand from southern districts of Bihar. Orissa was renamed as Odisha in 2011. Telangana was created on 2 June 2014 as ten former districts of north-western Andhra Pradesh.

List

States

State	Capital	Largest City	Statehood	Area (km2)	Official Language
Andhra Pradesh	Hyderabad(de jure) Amaravati (de facto)	Visakhapatnam	1 October 1953	160,205	Telugu
Arunachal Pradesh	Itanagar		20 February 1987	83,743	English
Assam	Dispur	Guwahati	26 January 1950	78,550	Assamese
Bihar	Patna		26 January 1950	99,200	Hindi
Chhattisgarh	Naya Raipur	Raipur	1 November 2000	135,194	Hindi
Goa	Panaji	Vasco da Gama	30 May 1987	3,702	Konkani
Gujarat	Gandhinagar	Ahmedabad	1 May 1960	196,024	Gujarati
Haryana	Chandigarh	Faridabad	1 November 1966	44,212	Hindi
Himachal Pradesh	Shimla		25 January 1971	55,673	Hindi
Jammu and Kashmir	Srinagar(Summer) Jammu (Winter)	Srinagar	26 January 1950	222,236	Urdu
Jharkhand	Ranchi	Jamshedpur	15 November 2000	74,677	Hindi
Karnataka	Bengaluru		1 November 1956	191,791	Kannada
Kerala	Thiruvananthapuram	Kochi	1 November 1956	38,863	Malayalam
Madhya Pradesh	Bhopal	Indore	1 November 1956	308,252	Hindi
Maharashtra	Mumbai		1 May 1960	307,713	Marathi
Manipur	Imphal		21 January 1972	22,347	Manipuri
Meghalaya	Shillong		21 January 1972	22,720	English
Mizoram	Aizawl		20 February 1987	21,081	Mizo, English, Hindi
Nagaland	Kohima	Dimapur	1 December 1963	16,579	English
Odisha	Bhubaneswar		26 January 1950	155,820	Odia
Punjab	Chandigarh	Ludhiana	1 November 1966	50,362	Punjabi
Rajasthan	Jaipur		1 November 1966	342,269	Hindi
Sikkim	Gangtok		16 May 1975	7,096	English
Tamil Nadu	Chennai		26 January 1950	130,058	Tamil
Telangana	Hyderabad		2 June 2014	114,840	Telugu, Urdu
Tripura	Agartala		21 January 1972	10,492	Bengali, English, Kokborok
Uttar Pradesh	Lucknow	Kanpur	26 January 1950	243,286	Hindi
Uttarakhand	Dehradun		9 November 2000	53,483	Hindi
West Bengal	Kolkata		26 January 1950	88,752	Bengali, Nepali

Union territories

State	Capital	Largest City	Area (km2)	Official Language
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	Port Blair		160,205	English, Hindi
Chandigarh	Chandigarh	__	114	English
Dadra and Nagar Haveli	Silvassa		491	Gujarati, Hindi
Daman and Diu	Daman		112	English,Gujarati, Hindi, Konkani
Delhi	New Delhi	__	1,490	Hindi
Lakshadweep	Kavaratti		32	English
Puducherry	Pondicherry		492	English, Tamil

See also

• These areas may have guides on World Wikia. Check its India page.