States, Union Territories & International Boundaries

Why This Chapter Matters

This is one of the most reliable scoring areas in the whole geography syllabus. SSC CGL, CHSL, MTS, CPO and RRB NTPC papers almost always carry at least one or two direct questions from this chapter, usually about UT capitals, the number of states a boundary line touches, or which state shares the longest border with a neighbouring country. These are not analytical questions. They are pure recall, which means they are either a free mark or a mark you throw away by not revising a list once.

Here is the shape of what's coming: how the states you study today came to have their current boundaries, the complete UT list with capitals, and then the international boundaries, which is where most marks are lost. The single biggest mistake aspirants make here is mixing up the Radcliffe Line (India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh) with the McMahon Line (India-China, only in the eastern sector) and the Durand Line (Pakistan-Afghanistan, not an Indian border at all, but a favourite distractor option). Get these three straight in your head before you go further, because paper-setters build entire questions around swapping them.

1. How India's States Got Their Shape

Before 1947, India was a patchwork of British provinces and over 500 princely states. Integration under Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V.P. Menon merged the princely states into the Union between 1947 and 1949, but the internal boundaries still followed old British administrative lines, not language or culture. A Telugu speaker in Madras Presidency and a Tamil speaker sat in the same state government, and that friction did not stay quiet for long.

Potti Sriramulu, a Gandhian activist, fasted for 58 days demanding a separate Telugu-speaking state and died in December 1952. The public reaction forced the government's hand, and Andhra State was carved out of Madras in 1953, the first state formed purely on linguistic grounds.

That triggered demands from every other linguistic community, so the government appointed the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) in 1953, headed by Fazal Ali, with H.N. Kunzru and K.M. Panikkar as members. The SRC's report led to the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which redrew the map of India largely along linguistic lines and created 14 states and 6 union territories.

Exam trap: Students often credit the SRC with creating the linguistic-state principle. It didn't invent the idea, it formalised what Potti Sriramulu's death had already forced onto the political agenda. If a question asks what triggered the 1956 reorganisation, the answer is the Andhra agitation and Sriramulu's fast, not the SRC itself.

Reorganisation did not stop in 1956. Think of the country's map as a house that kept getting extra rooms added as families grew apart:

• 1960: Bombay State split into Maharashtra and Gujarat on linguistic lines.
• 1963: Nagaland became the 16th state, carved from Assam.
• 1966: Punjab was split into Punjab (Punjabi-speaking), Haryana (Hindi-speaking) and the union territory of Chandigarh, which became the shared capital of both.
• 1972: Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura became full states.
• 1975: Sikkim joined as the 22nd state after a referendum, having been a protectorate earlier.
• 1987: Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa became states (Goa was a UT until then).
• 2000: Chhattisgarh (from Madhya Pradesh), Uttarakhand (from Uttar Pradesh, originally named Uttaranchal) and Jharkhand (from Bihar) were all carved out in the same year, driven by demands for separate hill and tribal-belt administration.
• 2014: Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh, becoming the 29th state, again on the argument that a distinct region within a linguistic state deserved its own administration.
• 2019: The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act revoked the special status under Article 370 and split the state into two union territories: Jammu and Kashmir (with a legislature) and Ladakh (without one), effective 31 October 2019.

Memory hook: For the 2000 trio, remember "CUJ" in alphabetical order of the parent state they left — Chhattisgarh left Chhattisgarh (Madhya Pradesh), Uttarakhand left Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand left biJhar... simpler version: all three were carved out the same year, so just lock in "2000 = three new states, one each from MP, UP, Bihar."

As of 2026, India has 28 states and 8 union territories.

2. The Union Territories

A union territory is administered directly by the central government, usually through a Lieutenant Governor or Administrator, unlike a state which has its own elected government with more autonomy. Think of it like the difference between a tenant who owns the flat (a state) and one who lives in a company guest house managed by head office (a UT) — the day-to-day residents are the same kind of people, but who holds the keys is different.

Three of the eight UTs have a legislative assembly of their own: Delhi, Puducherry, and Jammu and Kashmir. The other five are administered without an elected legislature.

Union Territory	Capital	Notes
Delhi (NCT)	New Delhi	Has legislative assembly; national capital
Puducherry	Puducherry	Has legislative assembly; four disjoint coastal enclaves (Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe, Yanam)
Jammu and Kashmir	Srinagar (summer) / Jammu (winter)	Has legislative assembly; formed 2019
Ladakh	Leh	No legislature; formed 2019
Chandigarh	Chandigarh	Shared capital of Punjab and Haryana; no legislature
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	Port Blair	No legislature; only UT with international sea boundary via islands
Lakshadweep	Kavaratti	No legislature; smallest UT by area
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu	Daman	Merged into one UT in 2020; no legislature

Exam trap: Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu used to be two separate UTs until 26 January 2020, when they were merged into one. If a question was set using older data it may still list them separately, but the current, correct answer is one merged UT. Also note Chandigarh is a UT, not a part of either Punjab or Haryana, even though it serves as the capital of both.

3. Land Boundaries with Neighbouring Countries

India has a land boundary of roughly 15,200 km and shares borders with seven countries: Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Afghanistan. Sri Lanka and the Maldives are neighbours but share only a maritime boundary, not a land one, which is a very common trap in prelims-style questions.

Picture India's neighbours arranged clockwise from the northwest, like passengers seated around a train compartment starting near the engine: Pakistan and Afghanistan in the northwest corner, China and Nepal and Bhutan along the northern Himalayan wall, then Bangladesh and Myanmar wrapping around the east.

Neighbouring Country	Approx. Border Length	Indian States/UT Touching It
Bangladesh	~4,096 km (longest)	West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram
China	~3,488 km	Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh
Pakistan	~3,323 km	Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat
Nepal	~1,751 km	Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim
Myanmar	~1,643 km	Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram
Bhutan	~699 km	Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh
Afghanistan	~106 km (shortest, via PoK)	Only through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir stretch near the Wakhan Corridor

Exam trap: Bangladesh has the longest land border with India, not Pakistan, which is the intuitive but wrong guess most students make because Pakistan gets more news coverage. Afghanistan's border is the shortest and technically runs through territory India considers part of Jammu & Kashmir but is currently under Pakistani control, so many question-setters skip it or flag it as disputed. Know both facts, because either can appear.

Memory hook: Order the top three longest land borders as "B-C-P" — Bangladesh, China, Pakistan — and read it like a cricket batting order, your longest-serving opener bats first.

State with the longest and shortest borders

Among individual Indian states, West Bengal touches the most neighbouring countries — it borders Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, three countries from one state. Sikkim touches China, Nepal and Bhutan, making it another multi-neighbour state despite being India's second-smallest state by area. If a question asks which small state borders three countries, the answer is Sikkim.

4. Important Boundary Lines

Three named lines dominate this topic and examiners love testing whether you can tell them apart.

The Radcliffe Line — drawn by British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe in 1947, this is the boundary between India and Pakistan (and, after 1971, effectively also India and Bangladesh, since Bangladesh was East Pakistan at the time of drawing). Radcliffe had never visited India before and was given about five weeks to draw a border affecting hundreds of millions of people, working mostly off outdated maps and census data. That rushed, remote-office origin is exactly why the line still causes disputes over enclaves and river-course changes today.

The McMahon Line — agreed at the 1914 Simla Convention between British India and Tibet, named after British negotiator Sir Henry McMahon. It marks the boundary in the eastern sector between India (Arunachal Pradesh) and China. China has never formally accepted it, which is exactly why Arunachal Pradesh remains a live flashpoint in India-China relations. It does not apply to the western sector (Ladakh), where the boundary is governed by a different, still-unresolved arrangement called the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The Durand Line — drawn in 1893 by British civil servant Sir Mortimer Durand, this separates Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is not an India boundary at all, but exam-setters plant it as a distractor option next to Radcliffe and McMahon precisely because students blur "old colonial-era border line" into one bucket.

Memory hook: Match each line to its era of British contact using the initials as a chain — Radcliffe → 1947 (the year of India's own partition, easiest to remember since it's Independence year), McMahon → 1914 Simla (M for "Mountain line," since it runs along the Himalayan crest), Durand → 1893 (oldest of the three, and Durand is not even about India, keep it firmly out of the India-boundary bucket in your head).

Exam trap: A very common wrong-option trick is asking "which line separates India and China" and offering the Durand Line as a choice. Durand never touches India. Another trap: asking which sector the McMahon Line covers — remember it is eastern sector only, the western sector (Ladakh-Aksai Chin) boundary is a separate, unsettled matter under the LAC, not the McMahon Line.

Line of Control and Line of Actual Control

Two more terms get mixed up constantly. The Line of Control (LoC) separates Indian-administered Jammu & Kashmir from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir; it emerged from the 1972 Shimla Agreement after the 1971 war, replacing the earlier 1949 ceasefire line. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) separates Indian and Chinese-held territory and is not a formally surveyed, mutually agreed line, which is exactly why India and China periodically have standoffs over where it actually runs, as seen in Doklam (2017) and Galwan (2020). Think of the LoC as a fence both neighbours broadly agree on the position of, and the LAC as a fence where the two sides genuinely disagree on which side of the field it sits.

5. Coastal States and Landlocked States

India has a coastline of roughly 7,516 km touching nine coastal states and four UTs with a coastline. The coastal states, going down the west coast then up the east coast, are: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala (west coast), then Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal (east coast). Gujarat has the longest coastline among states.

Landlocked states — those with no coastline at all — cover the entire northern and central belt: Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and all the northeastern states except those bordering the sea via Bangladesh access routes. This matters for questions on port location and coastal economic zones covered elsewhere in this book, since a landlocked state's trade depends entirely on rail and road links to a coastal state's port.

6. States and UTs Sharing the Most Internal Borders

A less obvious but occasionally tested fact: Uttar Pradesh shares borders with the largest number of other Indian states, touching Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar, nine neighbours in total, more than any other state. This makes sense once you picture UP's location: it sits in the exact centre of the northern plains, like a busy railway junction where several lines converge, so almost every neighbouring line of states has to touch it somewhere.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• India currently has 28 states and 8 union territories (as of 2026).
• The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 created 14 states and 6 UTs, based on the Fazal Ali Commission (SRC) report.
• Potti Sriramulu's 1952 fast-unto-death led to the creation of Andhra State in 1953, the first linguistic state.
• Telangana (2014) is India's newest full state, carved from Andhra Pradesh.
• Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh became UTs on 31 October 2019 under the J&K Reorganisation Act.
• Only Delhi, Puducherry, and Jammu & Kashmir among the UTs have their own legislative assembly.
• Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu merged into a single UT on 26 January 2020.
• Chandigarh is a UT and the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana.
• India shares land borders with seven countries: Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Afghanistan.
• India's land border with Bangladesh (~4,096 km) is the longest; with Afghanistan (~106 km) is the shortest.
• Sri Lanka and Maldives are maritime neighbours only, no land boundary with India.
• West Bengal borders three countries: Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan.
• Sikkim also borders three countries: China, Nepal, Bhutan.
• The Radcliffe Line separates India-Pakistan (and effectively India-Bangladesh); drawn by Sir Cyril Radcliffe in 1947.
• The McMahon Line (1914, Simla Convention) separates India and China, but only in the eastern sector (Arunachal Pradesh).
• The Durand Line (1893) separates Pakistan and Afghanistan; it is NOT an India-related boundary.
• The Line of Control (LoC) divides India and Pakistan in Kashmir, formalised by the 1972 Shimla Agreement.
• The Line of Actual Control (LAC) divides India and China; it is not a formally demarcated line.
• India's coastline is about 7,516 km, touching 9 states and 4 UTs.
• Gujarat has the longest coastline among Indian states.
• Uttar Pradesh shares internal borders with the most states: nine.
• Sikkim joined India as its 22nd state in 1975 after a referendum ended its protectorate status.
• Goa became a full state only in 1987; before that it was a union territory.
• Nagaland (1963) was the first state carved directly out of Assam.
• Punjab was split into Punjab, Haryana and the UT of Chandigarh in 1966.
• The 2000 trio of new states — Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand — were carved from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar respectively.
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands is the only UT with a significant international sea boundary near Indonesia.
• Lakshadweep is India's smallest union territory by area.
• Jammu and Kashmir's capitals are Srinagar (summer) and Jammu (winter).
• Doklam (2017) and Galwan (2020) standoffs both occurred along the disputed LAC, not the McMahon Line sector.

Memory Tables

Table 1 — The Three Boundary Lines at a Glance

Line	Year Drawn	Drawn By	Separates	Sector/Notes
Radcliffe Line	1947	Sir Cyril Radcliffe	India–Pakistan / India–Bangladesh	Drawn in 5 weeks without ground survey
McMahon Line	1914	Sir Henry McMahon	India–China	Eastern sector only; China disputes it
Durand Line	1893	Sir Mortimer Durand	Pakistan–Afghanistan	Not an India boundary; common distractor

Table 2 — India's Neighbours: Border Length and Border States

Country	Border Length (approx.)	Rank by Length	Key Bordering States/UTs
Bangladesh	~4,096 km	1st (longest)	WB, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram
China	~3,488 km	2nd	J&K, Ladakh, HP, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh
Pakistan	~3,323 km	3rd	J&K, Ladakh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat
Nepal	~1,751 km	4th	Uttarakhand, UP, Bihar, WB, Sikkim
Myanmar	~1,643 km	5th	Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram
Bhutan	~699 km	6th	Sikkim, WB, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh
Afghanistan	~106 km	7th (shortest)	J&K/Ladakh (via PoK, Wakhan Corridor)

Table 3 — Major State Reorganisation Milestones

Year	Event
1953	Andhra State formed (first linguistic state)
1956	States Reorganisation Act — 14 states, 6 UTs created
1960	Bombay State split into Maharashtra and Gujarat
1963	Nagaland formed from Assam
1966	Punjab split into Punjab, Haryana, and UT of Chandigarh
1972	Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura become full states
1975	Sikkim becomes 22nd state
1987	Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa become states
2000	Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand carved out
2014	Telangana carved from Andhra Pradesh
2019	J&K Reorganisation: two new UTs, J&K and Ladakh
2020	Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu merged into one UT

Practice MCQs

Q1. Which commission's recommendations led to the States Reorganisation Act, 1956? (a) Sarkaria Commission (b) Fazal Ali Commission (c) Mandal Commission (d) Dulat Commission

Q2. The first state in India to be formed purely on a linguistic basis was: (a) Maharashtra (b) Punjab (c) Andhra State (d) Karnataka

Q3. Which of the following is the capital of Ladakh? (a) Srinagar (b) Kargil (c) Leh (d) Jammu

Q4. How many union territories currently have their own legislative assembly? (a) One (b) Two (c) Three (d) Four

Q5. Which country shares the longest land border with India? (a) Pakistan (b) China (c) Bangladesh (d) Nepal

Q6. The McMahon Line forms a boundary between India and: (a) Pakistan (b) China (c) Myanmar (d) Bhutan

Q7. Which of these countries does NOT share a land boundary with India? (a) Bhutan (b) Myanmar (c) Sri Lanka (d) Nepal

Q8. Chandigarh serves as the joint capital of which two states? (a) Haryana and Himachal Pradesh (b) Punjab and Haryana (c) Punjab and Himachal Pradesh (d) Punjab and Rajasthan

Q9. The Durand Line separates which two countries? (a) India and Pakistan (b) India and China (c) Pakistan and Afghanistan (d) Afghanistan and China

Q10. Which state shares a border with the most number of other Indian states? (a) Madhya Pradesh (b) Uttar Pradesh (c) Assam (d) Rajasthan

Q11. Telangana, India's 29th state, was carved out of: (a) Karnataka (b) Maharashtra (c) Andhra Pradesh (d) Odisha

Q12. Which Indian state has the longest coastline? (a) Tamil Nadu (b) Andhra Pradesh (c) Kerala (d) Gujarat

Q13. Potti Sriramulu's fast-unto-death in 1952 was primarily connected to the demand for: (a) A separate Tamil state (b) A separate Telugu-speaking state (c) Abolition of princely states (d) A separate Kannada state

Q14. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is the de facto boundary between India and which country? (a) Pakistan (b) China (c) Myanmar (d) Nepal

Q15. Which of the following UTs was formed by merging two previously separate union territories in 2020? (a) Chandigarh (b) Puducherry (c) Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (d) Lakshadweep

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
Q1	(b)	The SRC, headed by Fazal Ali with Kunzru and Panikkar, drafted the 1956 reorganisation, not Sarkaria (Centre-state relations) or Mandal (OBC reservation).
Q2	(c)	Andhra State (1953) predates the 1956 Act itself and set the precedent for linguistic reorganisation nationwide.
Q3	(c)	Leh is Ladakh's capital; Srinagar and Jammu are the two capitals of the separate UT of Jammu & Kashmir.
Q4	(c)	Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu & Kashmir have assemblies; the other five UTs are run without one.
Q5	(c)	Bangladesh's ~4,096 km border beats Pakistan's ~3,323 km, a very common wrong-guess trap.
Q6	(b)	McMahon Line (1914 Simla Convention) covers only the eastern India-China sector, not Ladakh.
Q7	(c)	Sri Lanka is separated from India by the Palk Strait; it is a maritime, not land, neighbour.
Q8	(b)	Chandigarh was created in 1966 when Punjab was split, and it serves both Punjab and Haryana as capital.
Q9	(c)	Durand Line (1893) is a Pakistan-Afghanistan boundary with no direct India connection, a favourite distractor.
Q10	(b)	Uttar Pradesh's central location means it touches nine other states, more than any other single state.
Q11	(c)	Telangana split from Andhra Pradesh in 2014 to become India's newest full state before J&K's UT reorganisation in 2019.
Q12	(d)	Gujarat has India's longest state coastline, ahead of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Q13	(b)	His 58-day fast for a Telugu-speaking state directly triggered the creation of Andhra State in 1953.
Q14	(b)	The LAC separates Indian and Chinese-held territory and remains undemarcated, unlike the mutually accepted LoC with Pakistan.
Q15	(c)	Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu, were merged into one UT effective 26 January 2020.