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India is a federal republic comprising twenty-eight states and seven union territories. The states and territories are themselves further subdivided.^[1]

The subcontinent of India has been ruled by many different ethnic groups throughout its history, each imposing their own administrative divisions on the region. Modern India's current administrative divisions are fairly recent developments, which began to develop during British colonial rule of India. British India included all of present-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well as the associated protectorates of Afghanistan and Burma (Myanmar). During this period, regions of India were either directly ruled by the British or under the control of local rajas. Independence in 1947 largely preserved these divisions, with the exception of areas like the Punjab and Bengal, which were divided between India and Pakistan. One of the first challenges for the new nation was the integration of the multitude of princely states into the union.

Following independence, however, instability soon arose. Many of the states had been arbitrarily created by the British to serve their colonial purposes and as such, did not reflect either the will of India's citizens or the vast ethnic diversity found throughout the subcontinent. Ethnic tensions spurred the Indian Parliament to reorganize the country along ethnic and linguistic lines in 1956.

The former French and Portuguese colonies in India were incorporated into the Indian Republic as the union territories of Puducherry, Dadra, Nagar Haveli, 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, since renamed Uttarakhand, was created out of the foothils of northwestern Uttar Pradesh. The Union Territories of Delhi and Pondicherry have since been given the right to elect their own legislatures, and hence are on their way to full statehood.

Administrative divisions of India, including 28 states and 7 union territories.

States:

• List of Indian state and union territory capitals
• List of Indian States and Union Territories and their two digit codes
• List of states of India by area
• List of states of India by population
• List of Indian states by the etymology of their name
• States of India by size of economy
• Subdivisions of India

• Official Government of India website: States and Union Territories
• Article on sub-national governance in India
• Interactive Map of India

v • d • e States and territories of India
States	Andhra Pradesh · Arunachal Pradesh · Assam · Bihar · Chhattisgarh · Goa · Gujarat · Haryana · Himachal Pradesh · Jammu and Kashmir · Jharkhand · Karnataka · Kerala · Madhya Pradesh · Maharashtra · Manipur · Meghalaya · Mizoram · Nagaland · Orissa · Punjab · Rajasthan · Sikkim · Tamil Nadu · Tripura · Uttar Pradesh · Uttarakhand · West Bengal
Union territories	Andaman and Nicobar Islands · Chandigarh · Dadra and Nagar Haveli · National Capital Territory of Delhi · Daman and Diu · Lakshadweep · Puducherry