Guinness Lists Majuli at 880 Square Kilometres, While the Assam Government's Own Pages Give 421, 475 and 483 for the Same River Island

Guinness World Records lists Majuli, an island in the Brahmaputra river in Assam, as the world’s largest river island, at around 880 square kilometres. The usual way in is a ferry from Nimati Ghat (a ghat is a river landing) near Jorhat, and the Majuli district portal gives the ferry hours as 7 am to 3.30 pm. We read the pages cited below on 8 October 2026.

Why the area changes from page to page

The Assam government does not use the Guinness figure. The district homepage says 483 square kilometres “at present” and adds that the island was 1,250 before 1950. A welcome page on the same portal says 475. The state tourism department’s Majuli page says 421.

The Sentinel reported in 2020 that the Centre told Parliament in 2017 that a 1940 Survey of India map showed 733.79 square kilometres, falling to about 502.21 by 2004. The district’s history page quotes older records. It gives B. C. Allen’s 1901 gazetteer as about 185 square miles (roughly 480 square kilometres) and an 1853 report as 282,165 acres (roughly 1,140 square kilometres). The portal does not reconcile the two. We found no official page that puts the island at about 1,250 square kilometres in the early 1900s, and the district portal dates that figure only to “before 1950”.

What the erosion record shows

The Guinness entry says frequent flooding of the Brahmaputra causes heavy erosion on Majuli, and that the island has lost roughly a third of its area in the last 30 to 40 years. The district profile adds that the great Assam earthquake of 1950 raised the river bed, that erosion on the southern side has risen since, and that it has taken villages and satras.

The official figures disagree. The Sentinel’s editorial of 28 October 2020 says the Centre told the Lok Sabha that the island gained a net 22.08 square kilometres between 2004 and 2016, reaching 524.29. The district’s own disaster plan, the editorial says, puts the area at 483 in 2014, which it argues contradicts the Centre’s figures. The plan also says that only 141 of 210 revenue villages still exist.

The Assam Tribune reported on 8 April 2025 on a satellite study by the Central Water Power Research Station in Pune, which the Jal Shakti ministry initiated. It found about 75 square kilometres eroded and 58 deposited along the right bank between 1986 and 2023, and about 26 square kilometres of deposition near Kamalabari from 2018 to 2023. The newspaper’s summary gives no net figure.

The satras, counted three ways

A satra is a monastery of the neo-Vaishnavite tradition, which the district portal ties to the teaching of Srimanta Sankardeva and his disciple Madhavdeva. The Assam Tourism page says 22 satras exist today. The 2006 Act, Assam Act VII, lists 31 by name in its schedule, marking most as celibate (udasin) or householder (grihasthi). Beyond that list the Act admits a satra only if the government notifies it, it is at least fifty years old and the Authority accepts it.

For visitors, the portal names six: Auniati, Dakhinpat, Garamur, Kamalabari, Samaguri and Bengena-ati.

Masks, Raas and Sattriya

The district page on Samaguri Satra says it was established in 1663 by Chakrapani, a grandson of Sankardeva, and is known for masks worn in bhaona, the satras’ religious drama. The same page says the mask tradition has continued for more than five centuries, which sits oddly with a 1663 founding.

Raas Mahotsav stages the life of Krishna. The district portal says it was first performed at Dakhinpat Satra in 1840. It became a stage performance in 1934 under Pitambardeva Goswami of Garamur Satra, and in 1950 he let the satra’s girls take roles. The festival runs three to four days, and the portal says families host the visitors in their homes.

Assam Tourism calls mid-November, the time of Raas, the best time to visit. The district portal puts the festival on the full-moon day in November. We did not find a 2026 date, so ask the district administration.

The Assam Tribune reported that the Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised Sattriya, the dance of the satras, as one of India’s eight classical dance forms on 15 November 2000, when Bhupen Hazarika was its president.

Mising villages and stilt houses

Assam Tourism says most islanders belong to three tribes, Mising, Deori and Sonowal Kachari. The district portal gives the 2011 Census count as 167,304 people (about 1.67 lakh) in 139 revenue villages.

The portal’s suggested itinerary sends visitors to a Mising village for the stilt houses, called chang ghar, and for handloom weaving. The 2006 Act lists Mising and Deori villages among the cultural resources it protects and gives the Mising Autonomous Council’s chief executive, or a representative, a seat on its Executive Group.

District status, a 2006 Act and the UNESCO list

Scroll reported on 8 September 2016 that Majuli was being upgraded from a sub-division to a district, India’s first island district and Assam’s 35th. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said the date was picked because it is Bhupen Hazarika’s birth anniversary, and Scroll noted he had won the Majuli seat in the Assembly election that year. The district has its headquarters at Garamur, one sub-division and two development blocks.

The Majuli Cultural Landscape Region Act, 2006, received the Governor’s assent on 25 July 2006. It set up the Majuli Cultural Landscape Management Authority, with the Chief Secretary, or an Additional Chief Secretary he nominates, as chairperson. Among its duties is coordinating flood and erosion protection schemes alongside work to preserve the satras and villages. We found no public report of what the Authority does now.

UNESCO’s Tentative List has carried “River Island of Majuli in midstream of Brahmaputra River in Assam” since 2004. India has 45 inscribed World Heritage properties, and Majuli is not among them.

Ferries, floods and the best months

Ferries cross from Nimati Ghat to Kamalabari Ghat or Afalamukh Ghat on the island. The portal asks passengers and vehicles to book at the Inland Water Transport department’s site, asiwt.in, and says that in festival season boats run every half hour from 7.30 am to 3.30 pm. The at-a-glance page says service starts at 7 am, not 7.30, and that the crossing takes about an hour. Jorhat has the nearest airport and railhead.

The river can stop the service in both directions. On 29 June 2024 the Assam Tribune reported ferries at Nimatighat and Apholamukh suspended indefinitely as rising water covered the ramps. On 20 October 2024 service stopped after a sudden fall in the river level, and the Sentinel reported it resumed on 30 October after dredging, with small marine-engine boats and without the large Ro-Pax vessels.

The district profile calls the summer-monsoon season the main flooding season, and the portal gives October to March as the best time to visit. Our explainer on how the monsoon works covers the rains behind those floods.

The bridge from Jorhat

The crossing from Jorhat is by ferry until a bridge opens. Another northeastern answer to a river is Meghalaya’s, where villagers grow crossings from living fig roots, as our piece on the living root bridges describes.

The Union government sanctioned Rs 925.47 crore for a two-lane bridge between Jorhat and Majuli. PTI reported on 7 October 2025 that work had been stalled since September 2024, when the first contractor, UP State Bridge Corporation, left the site, and that the cost was revised in March 2025 to Rs 1,019.17 crore (about Rs 10.2 billion). It had been due for commissioning in November 2025.

The road ministry gave a letter of acceptance to Haryana-based SPS Construction India for the 6.81 km main bridge at Rs 657.66 crore without GST, within an 8.03 km structure that includes approaches. The letter set no deadline, PTI said.

The Assam Tribune reported on 24 January 2026 that work had resumed and that completion was targeted within about two years, provided it continued uninterrupted.