Travel India Guide: Stae map of India and various locations

Travel India Guide: State Map of India

Detailed Indian State map and maps of various locations for you on travelindia-guide.com. India has 28 states and 7 Union territories. Rajasthan is the largest state in India and Goa the smallest. Many of the Indian states are as large as many of the existing countries. Rajasthan is the same size as Germany, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are as large as Poland, Andhra Pradesh is larger than New Zealand, Uttar Pradesh is as large as United Kingdom, Tamil Nadu is as large as Greece, Haryana is larger than Switzerland and even the smallest Indian state Goa is bigger than Mauritius.

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 1 May 1960 by the Bombay Reorganization Act. The Punjab Reorganization 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 joined the Indian Union 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;

Chhattisgarh(November 1, 2000) was created out of eastern Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal (November 9, 2000), since renamed Uttarakhand, was created out of the Hilly regions of northwest Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand (15 November 2000)was created out of the southern districts of Bihar. The Union Territories of Delhi and Pondicherry (renamed to Puducherry) have since been given the right to elect their own legislatures and they are now counted as small states.