Madhya Pradesh Had an Estimated 785 Tigers in 2022, More Than Any Other State, Is India's Only Diamond Producer and Has Three World Heritage Sites

The Press Information Bureau’s release on the 2022 All India Tiger Estimation says the largest tiger population, 785, is in Madhya Pradesh, ahead of Karnataka (563), Uttarakhand (560) and Maharashtra (444). The Indian Bureau of Mines calls Madhya Pradesh the only diamond-producing state in the country. Population figures below come from the 2011 census, the latest published, because the next count is under way.

Four states and a slice of Rajasthan became one state on 1 November 1956

Section 9(1) of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 built the state from five pieces: the old Madhya Pradesh, the state of Madhya Bharat (except Sunel tappa, a patch of Mandsaur district), the Sironj sub-division of Rajasthan’s Kotah district, and the states of Bhopal and Vindhya Pradesh. Section 8(1)(c) sent eight districts of the old state to Bombay State: Buldana, Akola, Amravati, Yeotmal, Wardha, Nagpur, Bhandara and Chanda. Section 2(a) fixes the appointed day as 1 November 1956. A further swap of territory with Rajasthan under an Act of 1959 took effect on 1 October 1959, according to the Constitution’s First Schedule footnotes.

The Law Commission of India, whose members visited in November 1957, described the new state as 43 districts in seven divisions with 2,60,71,637 people. It put the seat of government at Bhopal and the High Court at Jabalpur, because Nagpur, capital of the old state, had gone to Bombay. At the 2011 census the state had about 7.27 crore people, according to the State Level Bankers’ Committee.

The Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 took 16 districts, from Bastar to Surguja, out of the state to form Chhattisgarh from 1 November 2000. Our Chhattisgarh profile covers the other side of that split. Section 12 fixed the Assembly at 230 seats for Madhya Pradesh and 90 for Chhattisgarh. Section 9 gave Madhya Pradesh 29 Lok Sabha seats, and section 7 cut its Rajya Sabha seats from 16 to 11. Section 21 kept the existing High Court as the court of the reduced state.

A 230-seat Assembly, 29 Lok Sabha seats and a Legislative Council on paper

The Second Schedule to the Representation of the People Act, 1950 lists 230 Assembly seats, of which 35 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 47 for Scheduled Tribes. Of the 29 Lok Sabha seats, 4 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and 6 for Scheduled Tribes, and the Fourth Schedule gives the state 11 Rajya Sabha seats. Under Article 170 the seat count stays tied to the 2001 census until figures from the first census after 2026 are published.

Article 168(1)(a) lists Madhya Pradesh among the states with two Houses, a Legislative Council and a Legislative Assembly, and the footnote says the Seventh Amendment inserted it from 1 November 1956. The council has never come into operation. A 2013 report of the Rajya Sabha’s committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice says the councils of Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh are yet to be made operational. Our guide to which states have two Houses covers the council question. Article 164 also requires Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha to have a minister in charge of tribal welfare.

The State Level Bankers’ Committee lists an area of 3,08,245 square kilometres, the second largest of any state, with 55 districts in 10 divisions, 369 tehsils and 23,043 gram panchayats. The Madhya Pradesh Official Language Act, 1957 (assented to on 24 January 1958) makes Hindi in the Devanagari script the state’s official language for official purposes, with exceptions the Constitution or the government sets.

The High Court of Madhya Pradesh began as the Nagpur High Court on 2 January 1936 and has its principal seat at Jabalpur. Its own site says temporary benches opened at Indore and Gwalior on 1 November 1956 and became permanent by a Presidential notification of 28 November 1968. It gives a sanctioned strength of 53 judges.

An economy of Rs 16.7 lakh crore in which farming still counts for 44 percent

PRS Legislative Research puts the state’s gross state domestic product (GSDP, the value of goods and services produced in a year) at Rs 16,69,750 crore in the revised estimates for 2025-26 and Rs 18,48,274 crore for 2026-27, growth of 11 percent. A lakh crore is a trillion rupees. For 2024-25 PRS estimates real growth of 6 percent against 6.5 percent for India, with agriculture, manufacturing and services at 44, 19 and 37 percent of the economy at current prices. Per capita GSDP was an estimated Rs 1,70,430 against Rs 2,34,859 for India’s per capita GDP.

The State Level Bankers’ Committee lists soybean, wheat, paddy, jowar, maize, gram, mustard and tuar as the main crops, and says 72.21 percent of residents lived in rural areas in 2011.

Of Rs 3,08,703 crore in revenue receipts for 2026-27, PRS puts 46 percent from the state’s own resources and 54 percent from the Centre. The share in central taxes is Rs 1,12,137 crore, 36 percent of receipts. Under the 16th Finance Commission, Madhya Pradesh’s share of the divisible pool (the central taxes shared with states) is 7.35 percent for 2026 to 2031, against 7.85 percent under the 15th and 7.55 percent under the 14th. The budget targets a fiscal deficit of 3.9 percent of GSDP, down from 4.5 percent in the 2025-26 revised estimates. The Commission recommended a 3 percent ceiling for 2026 to 2031, and outstanding liabilities are put at 32.5 percent of GSDP at the end of 2026-27.

PRS reports that the 16th Commission found Madhya Pradesh budgeting 4.1 percent of GSDP for subsidies and transfers in 2025-26, against 2.7 percent for states on average, driven by power, farm support and cash transfers. A monthly cash transfer to women, now Rs 1,500, has Rs 23,883 crore allocated for 2026-27.

The Indian Bureau of Mines says the state hosts about 90 percent of India’s diamond resources and is a leading producer of copper concentrate, manganese ore and limestone. Diamond output has been small and uneven: 28,816 carats in 2019-20, 13,917 in 2020-21 and 266 in 2021-22 on a provisional count. Coal output was 137,975 thousand tonnes in 2021-22.

The largest Scheduled Tribe population of any state

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs’ Census 2011 table lists 1,53,16,784 Scheduled Tribe residents in Madhya Pradesh. That is 21.1 percent of the state and 14.7 percent of all Scheduled Tribe people in India, ahead of Maharashtra’s 1,05,10,213. The Bankers’ Committee puts Scheduled Castes at 15.54 percent. A footnote to the Constitution’s Fifth Schedule names the Scheduled Areas (States of Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa) Order, 1977 among the orders that declare tribal areas, and our piece on how tribal areas govern themselves explains what that status changes.

Tigers, cheetahs, three World Heritage sites and the cleanest city

The Press Information Bureau lists Bandhavgarh (135 tigers), Kanha (105) and Pench in Madhya Pradesh (77) among the reserves with the most tigers, and the National Tiger Conservation Authority’s list gives the state nine of India’s 58 tiger reserves, more than any other state. The 785 is an estimate, as the national total is: the release gives 3,682 as the average, with a minimum of 3,167 and an upper limit of 3,925. Our piece on the tiger count explains the ranges behind the national figure.

On 17 September 2022 eight cheetahs from Namibia, five female and three male, were released at Kuno National Park under Project Cheetah, which the Press Information Bureau called the world’s first inter-continental translocation of a large wild carnivore. The release records that the cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952.

UNESCO lists Khajuraho (inscribed in 1986), the Buddhist monuments at Sanchi (1989) and the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka (2003) in the state, three of India’s 45 properties. UNESCO says Khajuraho’s temples were built in the Chandella dynasty’s peak years, 950 to 1050. Sanchi’s monuments mostly date from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, and its sacred status is attributed to the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. Our Khajuraho guide covers a visit.

In the 2024-25 Swachh Survekshan, the national cleanliness survey, the Press Information Bureau named Indore, Surat and Navi Mumbai as entrants to the premier Super Swachh League, with 23 league cities honoured, and named Bhopal among the top Swachh Shehar.

What comes next

Census 2027’s houselisting runs from 1 April to 30 September 2026, with a reference date of 1 March 2027 for the population count, according to the Press Information Bureau. The 2011 figures above will be replaced, and any change in Assembly seats follows the census under Article 170.

The 2026-27 budget plans an Indore-Pithampur Economic Corridor costing Rs 2,360 crore, a telecom manufacturing zone at Gwalior and a Rs 5,000 crore urban scheme over three years. The 16th Finance Commission makes Indore and Bhopal eligible for special wastewater grants of up to Rs 5,000 crore each.