States and territories of India
India is subdivided into twenty-nine
states and six
union territories.
Pre-independence
British India, which included all of modern-day
India,
Pakistan, and
Bangladesh, but not
Bhutan ,
Ceylon,
Nepal or
Sikkim, was made up of two types of territorial divisions,
provinces and
Princely States.
Provinces
The former French and Portuguese colonies in India were incorporated into the Indian Republic as the union territories of Pondicherry,
Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and
Goa, Daman, and Diu in 1962.
Several new states and union territories have been created out of existing states since 1956. Bombay State was split into the linguistic states of
Gujarat and
Maharashtra on
May 1 1960 by the
Bombay Reorganisation Act. The
Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 divided the Punjab along linguistic and religious lines, creating a new Hindu and Hindi-speaking state of
Haryana, transferring the northern districts of Punjab to Himachal Pradesh, and designating
Chandigarh, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, a union territory. Nagaland was made a state in 1962, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh in 1971, and Tripura and Manipur in 1972. Arunachal Pradesh was made a union territory in 1972. The Kingdom of
Sikkim was annexed to India as a state in 1975. Mizoram was made a state in 1986, and Goa and Arunachal Pradesh in 1987, while Goa's northern exclaves of Daman and Diu became a separate union territory. In 2000 three new states were created;
Jharkhand was created out of the southern districts of Bihar,
Chhattisgarh was created out of eastern Madhya Pradesh, and
Uttaranchal was created out of northwestern Uttar Pradesh.
*
List of states of India by population*
List of states of India by area*
List of capitals of subnational entities,
*
List of Indian state and UT capitals*
States of India by size of economy*
List of Indian States and Union Territories and their two digit codes in MS Excel format*
Article on sub-national governance in India*
Haryana Online*
Interactive Map of India
