Administrative divisions of India

Sub-national zones

Administrative zones

The states of India have been grouped into six zones having an Advisory Council "to develop the habit of cooperative working" among these States. Zonal Councils were set up vide Part-III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. The North Eastern States' special problems are addressed by another statutory body - The North Eastern Council, created by the North Eastern Council Act, 1971. The present composition of each of these Zonal Councils is as under:

• Northern Zonal Council, comprising Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, and Rajasthan;
• North Eastern Council, comprising Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura; The State of Sikkim has also been included in the North Eastern Council vide North Eastern Council (Amendment) Act, 2002 notified on 23 December 2002.
• Central Zonal Council, comprising the States of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh;
• Eastern Zonal Council, comprising Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal;
• Western Zonal Council, comprising Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Goa, Gujarat, and Maharashtra;
• Southern Zonal Council, comprising Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana.
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep are not members of any of the Zonal Councils. However, they are presently special invitees to the Southern Zonal Council

Cultural zones

Each zone has a zonal headquarters where a zonal cultural center has been established. Several states have membership in multiple zones, but no state subdivisions are utilised in the zonal divisions. In addition to promoting the culture of the zones they are responsible for, each zonal center also works to cross-promote and create exposure to other cultural zones of India by organising functions and inviting artistes from other zones.

States and union territories within zones

India is composed of 28 states and eight union territories (including a national capital territory).

States

India consists of 28 states and 8 union territories, including the National Capital Territory of Delhi with Rajasthan being largest in land area.

Union territories

Divisions within states and UT

Divisions exist within the respective states and union territories, and are of two types, namely the "Administrative Divisions" (directly under the control of the state government) and the "Autonomous Administrative Divisions" (relatively with the higher degree of autonomy governed by the directly elected council).

Autonomous administrative divisions

The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India allows for the formation of autonomous administrative divisions which have been given autonomy within their respective states and union territories.

Presently, 10 Autonomous Councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura are formed by virtue of the Sixth Schedule with the rest being formed as a result of other legislation.

There are 10 Autonomous District Councils created by the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India:

Some states have created autonomous councils by an Act of their state legislatures. The two autonomous councils in the union territory of Ladakh was created by the state of Jammu and Kashmir (1952 – 2019).

Administrative divisions

Many of the Indian states are subdivided into divisions, which have official administrative governmental status, and each division is headed by a senior IAS officer called Divisional Commissioner.

States like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Goa, etc. don't have separate divisions or regions. Instead, they're directly split into districts for administrative purposes.

As of September 2022, divisions exist in 18 of the 28 states and 3 of the 8 union territories. As of September 2022, there are a total of 102 divisions in India.

Regions within states

Some states consist of regions, which have no official administrative governmental status. They are purely geographic regions; some correspond to historic countries, states or provinces. A region may comprise one or more divisions, averaging about three divisions per region. However, the boundaries of the regions and the boundaries of the divisions do not always coincide exactly. So far there has been no movement to give the regions official administrative status. If this was to be done, it would presumably require that the boundaries of the regions be slightly modified so that they correspond exactly with their constituent districts.

• Regions of Assam (4)
  • Assam Proper region, Goalpara region, Kamrup region and Barak Valley region
• Regions of Gujarat (4)
  • North Gujarat, Central Gujarat, South Gujarat, and Saurashtra
• Regions of Kerala (3)
  • North Kerala, Central Kerala, and South Kerala
• Regions of Maharashtra (5)
  • Western Maharashtra (Desh), Vidarbha, Marathwada, North Maharashtra, and Konkan

Districts

States and union territories of India are subdivided into districts (zilla), numbering 797 as of November 2023. A district, formally designated a revenue district, serves as the primary administrative unit of a state or union territory.

Each district is headed by a civil servant, usually from the Indian Administrative Service, known variously as the District Collector, District Magistrate, or Deputy Commissioner, depending on the state. The office combines land revenue administration with magisterial and general executive responsibilities. Although created as a revenue unit, district boundaries are widely adopted by other departments—such as police, education, health, and rural development—for administrative efficiency, making the district a multipurpose jurisdiction.

Police administration within a district is under the Superintendent of Police (SP), typically an officer of the Indian Police Service. Police districts are generally coterminous with revenue districts, though in some states a single revenue district may contain more than one police district, or a police district may cover only a subdivision of a revenue district. A forest division is different from a revenue district. Its boundaries vary from state to state and may encompass multiple revenue districts or only a portion of one. Management of forests and wildlife resources within the forest division rests with the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), an officer of the Indian Forest Service.

Sectoral development functions are carried out by district-level officers of various line departments of the state government, including Public Works, Health, Education, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Social Justice, Urban Development, Panchayati Raj, and Rural Development. These officials usually belong to the respective state civil services.

Subdivisions

A sub-division is an administrative division of a district in India. In some states (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala) they are called Revenue Divisions. It is headed by a sub-divisional magistrate (also known as assistant collector or assistant commissioner). In some states, the post is designated as Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO) or Sub-Divisional Officer (Civil).

Subdivisions, also known as revenue divisions in some states, are designed primarily for land revenue administration and related purposes. These subdivisions serve as an intermediate tier between the district and the tehsil/taluk/subdistrict levels, encompassing multiple of these smaller administrative units. Their core functions revolve around the management of land records, the collection of land taxes, and the implementation of land-related policies, facilitating efficient governance and resource management at the local level.

A district may have multiple sub-divisions, and each of those sub-divisions may contain multiple sub-districts (tehsils/C.D. Blocks) and municipalities. For example, in West Bengal, the Murshidabad district contains five sub-divisions (mahakumas)

Subdistricts

A tehsil (also known as taluk, taluka, or mandal) is a sub-district unit in India, functioning mainly for land and revenue administration. It is headed by a tehsildar, who oversees land records, revenue collection, and related functions.

In some cases, tehsils overlap with community development blocks. Tehsils fall under the revenue department, while blocks come under the rural development department and are headed by a Block Development Officer (BDO), serving different administrative purposes over similar areas.

The following table lists the number of Block Development Blocks across the States and Union Territories of India. The administrative data is as of 1 February 2024:

Each tehsil is divided into revenue circles or directly into revenue villages. A revenue circle, headed by a circle officer or revenue inspector, oversees revenue collection and land records, and consists of multiple revenue villages, the lowest unit in the land revenue system.

Development Blocks

Each district is divided into Blocks, also known as Community Development Blocks (CD Block), purely for the purpose of rural development administration. Each Block comprises several rural subdivisions (Panchayats) and is headed by a Block Development Officer (BDO), who is an officer of the state civil service.

Local government

Urban level

List of towns in India by population

Urban agglomerations

Urban agglomerations are two or more separate administrative cities contiguous to each other, some of which may or may not have the formal recognition in the form of a legal body to manage the agglomerations, the examples of such legal bodies are Delhi NCR.

Metropolitan area

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) classifies the cities in India from Tier-I (largest) to Tier-IV (smallest) for the administrative efficiency, economic assessment, urban planning and infrastructure, investment considerations, business environment, and purchasing power of cities based on the criteria entailing the population, economic Development (GDP, etc), infrastructure, educational Institutions and healthcare Facilities, and administrative Importance. Tier-I and tier-II also called the metropolitan cities. The examples of Tier-I metropolitan cities of are: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune. Example of Tier-II city are Faridabad and Gurugram in Delhi NCR, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Surat, Raipur, etc; Tier-III cities are Hisar, Bhiwani, and Tier-IV is Hansi.

Statutory towns

All areas under statutory urban administrative units like Municipal Corporation, Municipal council, Cantonment Board, Notified Town Area Committee, Town Panchayat, etc., are known as Statutory Towns.

Census towns

Census towns are areas in India that have urban characteristics but are not defined as towns by state governments. They are governed by rural local bodies like gram panchayats, unlike statutory towns.

Rural level

Blocks

The Community Development Block also known as CD Block or just block, is often the next level of administrative division (for development purposes, whereas tehsil is next to the district for revenue purposes).

Blocks are district sub-divisions primarily for the purpose of Rural Development departments and Panchayati Raj institutions. Cities have similar arrangements under the Urban Development department. Tehsils (also called Taluks) are common across urban and rural areas for the administration of land and revenue departments, primarily to track land ownership and levy land tax.

Villages

Villages are often the lowest level of subdivisions in India. The governmental bodies at the village level are called Gram Panchayat, of which there were an estimated 256,000 in 2002. Each Gram Panchayat covers a large village or a cluster of smaller villages with a combined population exceeding 500 Gram Sabha. Clusters of villages are also sometimes called Hobli or Patti.

Habitations

Certain governmental functions and activities - including clean water availability, rural development, and education - are tracked at a sub-village level. These hamlets are termed "habitations". India is composed of 1,714,556 habitations In some states, most villages have a single habitation; in others (notably Kerala and Tripura) there is a high ratio of habitations to villages.

Others

India

• Akhand Bharat
• Greater India
• Indosphere
• Mandala (political model)
• Names of India

India outside India

• Indian Antarctica
• Overseas military bases of India
• Little India (disambiguation)

Historical administrative divisions

Listed from higher to lower:

• Historic India
  • Meluhha

• Province or state level
  • Subah,

• Division level
  • Chakla, a large division, often comprising several Parganas, and sometimes serving as a replacement or intermediate unit between a Sarkar and Pargana, particularly in regions like Bengal and Awadh.

• District level
  • Sarkar or Taraf

• Sub-district
  • Pargana or Mahal

• Village level
  • Mauza or Gram

Present day habitation terms

• Chak, village in Punjab Canal Colonies

• Dhani, hamlet

Land forms

Sometimes unofficial and sometimes official classification by the land form:

• • Bagar tract
  • Barani, Nehri and Nalli
  • Doab
  • Khadir and Bangar