States and union territories of India

is a comprising twenty-eight s and seven. The states and territories are themselves further.

Pre-1956
The subcontinent of India has been ruled by many different ethnic groups throughout its history, each imposing their own administrative divisions on the region. Modern India's current administrative divisions are fairly recent developments, which began to develop during British colonial rule of India. included all of present-day, , and , as well as the associated protectorates of and. During this period, regions of India were either directly ruled by the British or under the control of local. Independence in 1947 largely preserved these divisions, with the exception of areas like the and, which were divided between  and. One of the first challenges for the new nation was the integration of the multitude of s into the union.

Following independence, however, instability soon arose. Many of the states had been arbitrarily created by the British to serve their colonial purposes and as such, did not reflect either the will of India's citizens or the vast ethnic diversity found throughout the subcontinent. Ethnic tensions spurred the to reorganize the country along ethnic and linguistic lines in 1956.

After 1956
The former French and Portuguese colonies in India were incorporated into the Indian Republic as the of, , , , , and  in 1962.

Several new states and union territories have been created out of existing states since 1956. Bombay State was split into the linguistic states of and  on   by the. The of 1966 divided the Punjab along linguistic and religious lines, creating a new Hindu and Hindi-speaking state of, transferring the northern districts of Punjab to , and designating , the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, a union territory. Nagaland was made a state in 1962, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh in 1971, and and  in 1972. Arunachal Pradesh was made a union territory in 1972. The Kingdom of was annexed to India as a state in 1975. Mizoram was made a state in 1986, and Goa and Arunachal Pradesh in 1987, while Goa's northern s of Daman and Diu became a separate union territory. In 2000 three new states were created; was created out of the southern districts of Bihar,  was created out of eastern Madhya Pradesh, and  was created out of northwestern Uttar Pradesh. The Union Territories of and  have since been given the right to elect their own legislatures, and hence are on their way to full statehood.