India's 28 States and 8 Union Territories Grew Out of the 14 States and 6 Territories Created on 1 November 1956, Through Laws Parliament Passed Between 1960 and 2019

India has 28 states and 8 Union territories, which are areas administered under the President through an appointed administrator. That makes 36 units, and the First Schedule to the Constitution names each one and the Act that fixed its territory. The list began on 1 November 1956 with 14 states and 6 Union territories, and the latest change took effect on 26 January 2020, when two territories merged into one.

The number of states reached 29 in 2014 and fell to 28 on 31 October 2019. The First Schedule as printed in May 2022 numbers its states up to 28, and its footnotes record each change with the Act and the date that made it. This article follows those footnotes, the Acts themselves and the 1955 report that shaped the first large redraw.

The 1950 Constitution sorted its units into four Parts

When the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950, its First Schedule listed the units in four Parts. The States Reorganisation Commission, which reviewed the map in 1955, counted nine Part A states, eight Part B states and ten Part C states at that point. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands stood alone in Part D.

Part A states matched the old governors’ provinces: Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Madras, Orissa, Punjab, the United Provinces, West Bengal and the Central Provinces and Berar, which became Madhya Pradesh. Part B states were former princely states or unions of them, among them Hyderabad, Mysore, Jammu and Kashmir and Travancore-Cochin. The Commission describes Part C states as administered by the Centre “on a unitary basis”. How the princely states reached this arrangement is told in our piece on Sardar Patel and the princely states.

Andhra State in 1953 and the commission that followed

Two earlier bodies had urged caution about drawing states on language. The Dar Commission reported to the Constituent Assembly in December 1948 and held that forming provinces mainly on language would be inadvisable. The Congress committee of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramayya, known as the J.V.P. Committee, said language could separate people as well as bind them, yet suggested that Andhra could be a beginning.

After the death of Potti Sriramulu, the Government announced a state of the Telugu-speaking areas of Madras State, leaving out the city of Madras. A bill reached the House of the People on 10 August 1953, and the State of Andhra came into existence on 1 October 1953.

On 22 December 1953 the Prime Minister told Parliament that a commission would examine reorganisation “objectively and dispassionately”. A Home Ministry resolution of 29 December 1953 appointed it, with Saiyid Fazl Ali as chairman and Hriday Nath Kunzru and K. M. Panikkar as members. They signed their report in New Delhi on 30 September 1955.

The commission proposed 16 states, and Parliament created 14

The report accepted language as a major factor and rejected the theory of “one language one state”. Its scheme had sixteen states and three centrally administered territories, and it did away with the Part A, B and C distinctions.

Parliament used the report as its base and changed it. The States Reorganisation Bill went to the Lok Sabha on 18 April 1956, a joint committee of both Houses reported on 16 July, and the President gave assent on 31 August 1956. The Commission wanted the Telugu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State to continue as a state of their own, with a possible union with Andhra after elections around 1961 if its legislature agreed by a two-thirds majority. The Act added most of those districts to Andhra on 1 November 1956 and named the enlarged state Andhra Pradesh. The Commission proposed a separate Vidarbha, and the Act placed its eight districts in Bombay State. The Commission wanted Himachal Pradesh and the Patiala and East Punjab States Union merged into Punjab, and the Act merged only the second. The Commission proposed merging Tripura into Assam, and Tripura became a Union territory instead.

The Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act took effect on the same day, 1 November 1956. Its Statement of Objects refers to abolishing the three categories of states and classing certain areas as Union territories. The new First Schedule listed 14 states: Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Madras, Mysore, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Jammu and Kashmir. It listed six Union territories: Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands. The Act formed Kerala from Travancore-Cochin, the Malabar district and Kasaragod taluk, and it enlarged Mysore with districts from Bombay, Hyderabad and Madras and with Coorg.

How Parliament makes or redraws a state

Article 3 lets Parliament form a new state, change a state’s area or boundaries, or alter its name, by law. A bill needs the President’s recommendation before either House takes it up. If it affects a state’s area, boundaries or name, the President must first refer it to that state’s legislature for its views within a stated time. The Fifth Amendment, in force from 24 December 1955, rewrote that proviso. Article 4(2) says such a law is not an amendment of the Constitution for the purposes of Article 368, so it passes like an ordinary law.

The Supreme Court tested the 1956 process. The Bill as introduced proposed three units for Bombay: a Union territory of Bombay, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Parliament amended it into one composite Bombay State, and a petitioner argued that the state’s legislature should have been asked again. In Babulal Parate v. State of Bombay, decided on 28 August 1959 by five judges, the Court held that the proviso asks for the legislature’s views but does not require Parliament to accept them, and that a changed proposal needs no fresh reference. Our explainer on Article 1 and the Union of States covers the later rulings.

Fifteen more states, from Gujarat in 1960 to Telangana in 2014

The composite Bombay State lasted until 1 May 1960, when the Bombay Reorganisation Act made Maharashtra and Gujarat separate states. Nagaland was cut out of Assam under the State of Nagaland Act, 1962, and took effect on 1 December 1963. The Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 formed Haryana on 1 November 1966, created the Union territory of Chandigarh and added Punjab’s hill districts, including Shimla, Kangra, Kulu and Lahaul and Spiti, to Himachal Pradesh. Himachal Pradesh became a state on 25 January 1971 under the State of Himachal Pradesh Act, 1970.

The North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971 took effect on 21 January 1972. It made Manipur, Meghalaya and Tripura states and set up Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh as Union territories. Sikkim became a state on 26 April 1975 under the 36th Amendment, a story told in our account of Sikkim joining India. Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh became states on 20 February 1987, and Goa followed on 30 May 1987 under the Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act, 1987, leaving Daman and Diu as a Union territory.

Three more states came in November 2000, each under its own Act: Chhattisgarh on 1 November from Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand on 9 November from Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand on 15 November from Bihar. The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 formed Telangana, ten districts of Andhra Pradesh, on 2 June 2014. It made Hyderabad the common capital of both states for a period not exceeding ten years. The Lok Sabha passed on 1 April 2026, and the Rajya Sabha on 2 April, a bill that names Amaravati as Andhra Pradesh’s capital and treats the change as in force from 2 June 2024.

Names changed too. Madras became Tamil Nadu on 14 January 1969, Mysore became Karnataka on 1 November 1973, Uttaranchal became Uttarakhand on 1 January 2007, and Orissa became Odisha on 1 November 2011. The Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands became Lakshadweep on 1 November 1973, and Pondicherry became Puducherry on 1 October 2006.

2019 and 2020: one state became two territories, and two territories became one

Parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act in August 2019, the Rajya Sabha on 5 August and the Lok Sabha on 6 August, according to PRS Legislative Research. It came into force on 31 October 2019. It divided the state into the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which has a legislature, and the Union territory of Ladakh, made up of Kargil and Leh districts, which has none. The Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir has 90 elected seats, and PRS records that results for all of them were declared on 8 October 2024. The wider background is in our explainer Article 370, seven years on.

The Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Merger of Union Territories) Act received assent on 9 December 2019 and took effect on 26 January 2020. The Bill’s Statement of Objects says the two territories shared an administrative set-up, with common secretaries and a common police chief, and that the Administrator and Secretaries worked in both on alternate days. The merged territory has two Lok Sabha seats, and the Bombay High Court’s jurisdiction continues over it.

On the territory’s status, the Supreme Court Observer’s summary of the 11 December 2023 judgment says the Court upheld the procedure of the reorganisation and did not decide whether Jammu and Kashmir lost its character as a state by becoming a Union territory. It relied on the Solicitor General’s assurance that statehood would be restored, and directed elections by 30 September 2024. On 28 September 2026 the Union territory’s Assembly passed, by voice vote, a resolution asking the Centre to restore full statehood, according to ThePrint. Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party walked out, objecting to the resolution’s references to autonomy and special status.

All 36 units in one table

The table gives each unit’s capital as listed on the National Portal of India’s Know India page, the date it took its present form under the First Schedule, and whether it has a legislature. Where a unit existed earlier under another name or with other borders, the date column says so. Jammu and Kashmir has two seats of government, Srinagar in summer and Jammu in winter. Port Blair, the Andaman and Nicobar capital on that list, was renamed Sri Vijaya Puram on a decision the Ministry of Home Affairs announced on 13 September 2024.

Unit	Type	Capital	In present form since	Legislature
Andhra Pradesh	State	Amaravati	2 Jun 2014 (named 1 Nov 1956)	Yes
Arunachal Pradesh	State	Itanagar	20 Feb 1987	Yes
Assam	State	Dispur	1950	Yes
Bihar	State	Patna	1950 (borders since 15 Nov 2000)	Yes
Chhattisgarh	State	Raipur	1 Nov 2000	Yes
Goa	State	Panaji	30 May 1987	Yes
Gujarat	State	Gandhinagar	1 May 1960	Yes
Haryana	State	Chandigarh	1 Nov 1966	Yes
Himachal Pradesh	State	Shimla	25 Jan 1971	Yes
Jharkhand	State	Ranchi	15 Nov 2000	Yes
Karnataka	State	Bengaluru	1 Nov 1956 as Mysore (renamed 1 Nov 1973)	Yes
Kerala	State	Thiruvananthapuram	1 Nov 1956	Yes
Madhya Pradesh	State	Bhopal	1 Nov 1956 (borders since 1 Nov 2000)	Yes
Maharashtra	State	Mumbai	1 May 1960	Yes
Manipur	State	Imphal	21 Jan 1972	Yes
Meghalaya	State	Shillong	21 Jan 1972	Yes
Mizoram	State	Aizawl	20 Feb 1987	Yes
Nagaland	State	Kohima	1 Dec 1963	Yes
Odisha	State	Bhubaneswar	1950 as Orissa (renamed 1 Nov 2011)	Yes
Punjab	State	Chandigarh	1 Nov 1966	Yes
Rajasthan	State	Jaipur	1 Nov 1956	Yes
Sikkim	State	Gangtok	26 Apr 1975	Yes
Tamil Nadu	State	Chennai	1950 as Madras (renamed 14 Jan 1969)	Yes
Telangana	State	Hyderabad	2 Jun 2014	Yes
Tripura	State	Agartala	21 Jan 1972	Yes
Uttar Pradesh	State	Lucknow	1950 (borders since 9 Nov 2000)	Yes
Uttarakhand	State	Dehradun	9 Nov 2000	Yes
West Bengal	State	Kolkata	1950	Yes
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	Union territory	Port Blair, now Sri Vijaya Puram	1 Nov 1956 (Part D from 1950)	No
Chandigarh	Union territory	Chandigarh	1 Nov 1966	No
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu	Union territory	Daman	26 Jan 2020	No
Delhi	Union territory	Delhi	1 Nov 1956 (National Capital Territory from 1 Feb 1992)	Yes
Jammu and Kashmir	Union territory	Srinagar and Jammu	31 Oct 2019	Yes
Ladakh	Union territory	Leh	31 Oct 2019	No
Lakshadweep	Union territory	Kavaratti	1 Nov 1956	No
Puducherry	Union territory	Puducherry	1962 (14th Amendment)	Yes

Three Union territories have legislatures, each under a different law. Article 239AA, in force from 1 February 1992, gives Delhi an elected Assembly. Article 239A, inserted in 1962, lets Parliament create a legislature for Puducherry, and the Government of Union Territories Act, 1963 provides for 30 elected members and up to three nominated by the Centre. Jammu and Kashmir’s Assembly rests on the 2019 Act, which applies Article 239A to it. Article 239(1) says every other Union territory is “administered by the President acting, to such extent as he thinks fit, through an administrator”. The differences among the eight are laid out in our comparison of the Union territories.