Andhra Pradesh Has the Third-Longest Coastline Among Indian States at 1,053 Kilometres, About 30 Percent of the Country's Fish Output by Its Own Count, and a Capital Named in an Act of Parliament in 2026

Andhra Pradesh has a coastline of 1,053.07 kilometres, according to a Ministry of Earth Sciences reply posted on 4 December 2025, which puts it third among the states after Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. The state’s own Socio Economic Survey for 2024-25 says it supplies about 30 percent of India’s fish and 31 percent of its shrimp exports, and gives no source for those shares. The state has had its present boundaries since 2 June 2014, when Telangana was separated from it, and the census figures below are from 2011 because the next census is under way.

Andhra State in 1953, Andhra Pradesh in 1956

The States Reorganisation Commission’s report of 1955 records that the State of Andhra, made from the Telugu-speaking areas of Madras State and leaving out the city of Madras, came into existence on 1 October 1953. The Government of India took the decision after the death of Potti Sriramulu, the report says. Our guide to how India’s states took shape covers the wider story.

The Telugu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State were a separate question, and the Commission set out both cases. For a joint state it listed a combined population of about 32 million, unified control of the Krishna and Godavari basins, trade between the regions, and Hyderabad as a capital. For a separate Telangana it recorded fears among some leaders that Telangana’s revenue would cover Andhra’s deficit, a wish to keep Telangana’s own rights over the rivers’ waters, and an apprehension among Telangana’s educationally backward people that the more advanced people of the coast would swamp them. The Commission recommended a separate Hyderabad State for the time being, with union after the elections of about 1961 if two thirds of its legislature voted for it.

Parliament chose union at once. Section 3 of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 added the districts of Hyderabad, Medak, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Khammam, Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar, most of Adilabad, and several taluks of neighbouring districts to the State of Andhra, and named the enlarged state Andhra Pradesh from the appointed day, 1 November 1956. Those districts came from the Nizam’s former state, covered in our account of Operation Polo.

Hyderabad was shared until 2 June 2024, and Amaravati was named in 2026

The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 (Act 6 of 2014) received the President’s assent on 1 March 2014. The Constitution’s footnotes date its effect from 2 June 2014. On that day section 3 formed Telangana from ten districts of the old state, Hyderabad among them, and section 4 left Andhra Pradesh the rest.

Section 5 made Hyderabad the common capital for a period not exceeding ten years. After that, Hyderabad would be Telangana’s capital and Andhra Pradesh would have a new one. The Statement of Objects of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill, 2026 says the state government identified and notified Amaravati as that capital, and that the Assembly passed a resolution on 28 March 2026 asking Parliament to name it. The Bill replaced the words “and there shall be a new capital” in section 5(2) with “and Amaravati shall be the new capital”, to be treated as in force from 2 June 2024, ten years after the appointed day. ETV Bharat reported on 26 September 2026 that Amaravati now has statutory recognition under an Act of Parliament.

The question was contested before that. In December 2019 the state government announced an executive capital at Visakhapatnam, a legislative capital at Amaravati and a judicial capital at Kurnool, and it legislated the plan as the Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, 2020. ETV Bharat reported that farmers of the Amaravati villages opposed it. The Assembly passed a Bill to repeal the Act on 22 November 2021, with the Chief Minister of the time saying a new Bill would follow. The High Court’s verdict of 3 March 2022 made Amaravati the sole capital. The state appealed, and the Supreme Court stayed the High Court’s deadlines, ETV Bharat reported in September 2026.

In the Lok Sabha debate of 1 April 2026, IANS reported, a Congress member supported the Bill. A YSR Congress Party leader said his party was not against Amaravati but opposed the Bill in its present form, and said farmers who gave land for the capital had not received the developed plots promised to them. In September 2026 a three-judge High Court bench called the petitions against the three-capitals plan “infructuous”, meaning moot, because of Parliament’s recognition, and adjourned them to 20 November.

175 Assembly seats, 25 Lok Sabha seats and 28 districts

Section 17 of the 2014 Act fixed the Legislative Assembly at 175 seats, 29 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 7 for Scheduled Tribes. Section 14 gave the state 25 Lok Sabha seats, and section 12 set its Rajya Sabha quota at 11, down from 18 for the undivided state.

Andhra Pradesh is one of the six states with a second chamber. The Constitution’s footnotes record that its Legislative Council was abolished from 1 June 1985 and restored from 30 March 2007. The 2014 Act fixed the Council at 50 seats, and a 2015 amending Act raised the figure to 58 from a date the Centre was to notify.

The Survey counts 26 districts, up from 13 in 2022, and The News Minute reports that the Cabinet approved two more, Polavaram and Markapuram, on 29 December 2025, making 28. Bar and Bench reported on 26 December 2018 that the Centre had notified a separate High Court from 1 January 2019, with its principal seat at Amaravati. Telugu is the official language of the whole state under section 2 of the Andhra Pradesh Official Languages Act, 1966, which names Urdu as the second official language in the districts it lists.

At the 2011 census the state ranked tenth in population with 4.09 percent of India’s, and the Survey puts it eighth in area at 1,62,970 square kilometres. The sex ratio was 997 against 943 for India.

An economy of Rs 15.9 lakh crore with a large farm sector

PRS Legislative Research, working from the state’s 2026-27 budget documents, puts gross state domestic product (GSDP, the value of goods and services produced in the state in a year) at Rs 15,91,226 crore for 2024-25 at current prices. A lakh crore is a trillion rupees. PRS estimates real growth at 8 percent that year, against 6.5 percent for India, and per capita GSDP at Rs 2,98,058, against Rs 2,34,859 for India’s per capita GDP. Agriculture contributed 37 percent of the state’s economy, manufacturing 21 percent and services 42 percent. The state’s Survey carried an earlier advance estimate of Rs 16.06 lakh crore for the same year.

The 2026-27 budget, presented on 14 February 2026, targets a fiscal deficit of 3.8 percent of GSDP, down from 4.6 percent in the 2025-26 revised estimates. PRS lists outstanding liabilities at 36 percent of GSDP in 2024-25. It also records the Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2024 finding of Rs 1.28 lakh crore in off-budget borrowing, loans serviced from the budget but not raised by the government directly, as of March 2023. Under the 16th Finance Commission, tabled on 1 February 2026, the state’s share of divisible central taxes for 2026 to 2031 is 4.22 percent.

PRS says the same Commission noted that Andhra Pradesh had the highest per capita spending in the country on social security pensions, Rs 5,061 per person in the 2025-26 budget estimates.

A long coast, a fishing economy and Article 371D

The Ministry of Earth Sciences reply says a re-measurement by the National Hydrographic Office and the Survey of India raised Andhra Pradesh’s coast from 973.7 km to 1,053.07 km. Gujarat is first among the states at 2,340.62 km and Tamil Nadu second at 1,068.69 km. The state’s Survey lists one major port, Visakhapatnam, under the Union’s control and 16 notified ports under the state’s.

The Survey says the state supplies about 30 percent of national fish production and 31 percent of India’s shrimp exports. It reports 41.38 lakh tonnes of fish and prawn up to December 2024, against a full-year target of 56.62 lakh tonnes.

The Constitution also has an article written for this state’s history. Under the Nizam, Telangana had Mulki Rules reserving public jobs for residents. The Supreme Court’s account in P. Sambamurthy records that agitations in both regions followed from 1969 to 1972 and that political leaders agreed a Six Point Formula on 21 September 1973. Article 371D, in force from 1 July 1974, carried it into the Constitution. It lets the President provide by order for “equitable opportunities and facilities for the people belonging to different parts of such State” in public jobs and education, including local cadres and a preference in recruitment and university admission for people who lived or studied in the area. Our guide to Articles 371 to 371J covers the others.

On 20 December 1986 a five-judge bench struck down clause 5 and its proviso, which let the state government modify or annul the Administrative Tribunal’s final orders, because that put the tribunal’s judicial review under a government veto and so breached the basic structure. Section 97 of the 2014 Act extended the article to Telangana, and section 95 kept the existing admission quotas for ten years.

What comes next

Section 90 of the 2014 Act declared the Polavaram Irrigation Project a national project and made the Union responsible for executing it. The Survey places it on the Godavari and says it should irrigate 7.20 lakh acres, generate 960 MW and supply drinking and industrial water to Visakhapatnam. The 2026-27 budget allots Rs 6,105 crore to the dam and Rs 6,000 crore to Amaravati’s capital city, PRS records.

Union money is the other open question. Section 46 of the Act lets the Centre make grants and a special development package for backward areas, with incentives in particular for Rayalaseema and the north coastal regions. The Home Ministry told the Lok Sabha on 11 December 2018 that the 14th Finance Commission ended special category states and that Andhra Pradesh would instead get special assistance covering the extra central share it might have received from 2015-16 to 2019-20 had centrally sponsored schemes been funded 90:10. In the debate of 1 April 2026 a Congress member demanded special category status for the state, IANS reported.

Section 26 of the 2014 Act said that, subject to Article 170, the Assembly would grow from 175 to 225 seats. Article 170 says seat totals need not be readjusted until figures of the first census taken after 2026 are published, so 175 stands, as our guide to the delimitation freeze explains. The houselisting phase of Census 2027 ran from 1 April to 30 September 2026, in a 30-day window each state set, and the reference date for the population count is 00:00 hours on 1 March 2027, the Press Information Bureau says.