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India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 9 union territories, for a total of 37 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions.

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.^[1]

History

Administrative division of India in 1951

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.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][excessive citations]} 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".^[13] The constitution of 1950 distinguished between three main types of states:^[]

• 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 (formerly part of Bengal Province).
• 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.^[14]Andhra State was created on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking northern districts of Madras State.^[15]

The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 reorganised the states based on linguistic lines resulting in the creation of the new states.^[16] As a result of this act, Madras State retained its name with Kanyakumari district added to form 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.^[17]Nagaland was formed on 1 December 1963.^[18] 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.^[19] The act also designated Chandigarh as a union territory and the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana.^[20][21]

Madras state was renamed Tamil Nadu in 1968. North-eastern states of Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura were formed on 21 January 1972.^[22] 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.^[23] 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.^[24]

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.^{[25][26][27][28]} Orissa was renamed as Odisha in 2011. Telangana was created on 2 June 2014 as ten former districts of north-western Andhra Pradesh.^[29][30]

In July 2019, the Government of India was reportedly planning to merge the union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli into a single union territory to be known as Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu.^[31]

In August 2019, the Parliament of India passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, which contains provisions to reorganise the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories; Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh effective from 31 October 2019.^[32]

Current proposals

List

States

• ^Note 1 Andhra Pradesh was divided into two states, Telangana and a residual Andhra Pradesh on 2 June 2014.^[44][45][46]Hyderabad, located entirely within the borders of Telangana, is to serve as the capital for both states for a period of time not exceeding ten years.^[47] The Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Andhra Pradesh Legislature completed the process of relocating to temporary facilities in the envisaged new capital city Amaravati in early 2017.^[35]
• ^Note 2 Dehradun is the interim capital of Uttarakhand. The town of Gairsain is envisaged as the state's new capital.

Union territories

^Note 3 Jammu and Kashmir has 42,241 km² of area administered by India and 13,297 km² of area controlled by Pakistan under Azad Kashmir which is claimed by India as part of Jammu and Kashmir.

^Note 4 Ladakh has 59,146 km² of area administered by India and 72,971 km² of area controlled by Pakistan under Gilgit-Baltistan, which is claimed by India as part of Ladakh. Additionally, it has 5,180 km² of area controlled by the People's Republic of China under Trans-Karakoram Tract and 37,555 km² of area controlled by the People's Republic of China under Aksai Chin, which is claimed by India as part of Ladakh.

Former states

Map	State	Capital	Years	Successor state(s)
	Madhya Bharat	Indore (Summer) Gwalior (Winter)	1947-1956	Madhya Pradesh
	Eastern States Union	Raipur	1947-1948	Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh
	Madras State	Madras	1950-1969	Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka
	Mysore State	Mysore	1947-1973	Karnataka
	Patiala and East Punjab States Union	Patiala	1948-1956	Punjab
	Bombay State	Bombay	1947-1960	Maharashtra, Gujarat
	Bhopal State	Bhopal	1949-1956	Madhya Pradesh
	Saurashtra	Rajkot	1948-1956	Bombay State
	Coorg State	Madikeri	1950-1956	Mysore State
	Travancore-Cochin	Trivandrum	1949-1956	Kerala, Madras State
	Hyderabad State	Hyderabad	1948-1956	Andhra Pradesh, Telangana (since 2014) and partially Maharashtra, North Karnataka
	Vindhya Pradesh	Rewa	1948-1956	Madhya Pradesh
	Kutch State	Bhuj	1947-1956	Bombay State
	Bilaspur State	Bilaspur	1948-1954	Himachal Pradesh
	Cooch Behar State	Cooch Behar	1949	West Bengal
	Ajmer State	Ajmer	1947-1956	Rajasthan
	Jammu and Kashmir	Srinagar (Summer) Jammu (Winter)	1954-2019	Jammu and Kashmir (union territory) and Ladakh

See also

• Administrative divisions of India
• Autonomous regions of India
• List of states and union territories of India by area
• List of states and union territories of India by population
• List of states in India by past population
• List of states of India by wildlife population
• List of adjectives and demonyms for states and territories of India
• List of Indian state and union territory name etymologies
• List of princely states of British India (alphabetical)

Notes

References

External links

• Official Government of India website: States and Union Territories