The 28 States and 8 Union Territories, their capitals (administrative, legislative and judicial), the high courts, the reorganisation milestones (1956 SRC to 2019 Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, 2020 merger of the Daman and Dadra UTs), the border States, and a security-and-administration angle, with reference tables and authored CAPF practice
State-and-capital recall is the single most reliable map-and-fact zone in the paper: a State or UT to its capital, a State to its high court, a State to its neighbours, and the border States to the country they touch. It connects to polity (the federal structure under Article 1 and the First Schedule), to the freedom-struggle and reorganisation story, and to the CAPF security map (which State borders Pakistan, China, Nepal, and so on). The treatment follows the Constitution (Article 1 and the First Schedule, listing the States and Union Territories), NCERT, and the standard reorganisation chronology. The static count and capitals are stable, but always verify the latest position before the exam, as the map has changed several times in recent years.
India is, in the words of Article 1, a "Union of States". The First Schedule lists the States and the Union Territories. As of the latest reorganisation, India has 28 States and 8 Union Territories (verify the latest count). A State has its own elected legislature and government with a Chief Minister; a Union Territory is administered by the Centre through a Lieutenant Governor or Administrator, though Delhi and Puducherry (and Jammu and Kashmir) have legislatures with limited powers. The capital is the seat of government; some States separate the administrative, legislative and judicial seats.
| Milestone | Year | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| Dhar and JVP Committees | 1948 to 1949 | Cautious on linguistic States |
| Andhra State created | 1953 | First State on a linguistic basis, after Potti Sriramulu's death |
| States Reorganisation Commission (Fazl Ali) | 1953 to 1955 | Recommended reorganisation on language |
| States Reorganisation Act | 1956 | 14 States and 6 UTs created |
| Bombay split into Maharashtra and Gujarat | 1960 | |
| Nagaland | 1963 | |
| Punjab split (Haryana, Himachal areas) | 1966 | Punjab, Haryana, and the Union Territory of Chandigarh |
| North-east reorganisation | 1971 to 1987 | Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, then Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh |
| Sikkim | 1975 | Became the 22nd State |
| Goa | 1987 | Full statehood (separated from Daman and Diu) |
| Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand | 2000 | Carved from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar |
| Telangana | 2014 | 29th State, carved from Andhra Pradesh |
| Jammu and Kashmir reorganised | 2019 | The State became two Union Territories: J&K (with a legislature) and Ladakh (without) |
| Daman and Diu merged with Dadra and Nagar Haveli | 2020 | Into one UT, reducing the UT count |
After 2019 to 2020 the position settled at 28 States and 8 UTs (verify the latest).
| State | Capital(s) |
|---|---|
| Andhra Pradesh | Amaravati (verify current seat; Visakhapatnam has been proposed) |
| Arunachal Pradesh | Itanagar |
| Assam | Dispur (Guwahati) |
| Bihar | Patna |
| Chhattisgarh | Raipur (new capital Nava Raipur / Atal Nagar) |
| Goa | Panaji |
| Gujarat | Gandhinagar |
| Haryana | Chandigarh (shared) |
| Himachal Pradesh | Shimla (Dharamshala is the winter seat) |
| Jharkhand | Ranchi |
| Karnataka | Bengaluru |
| Kerala | Thiruvananthapuram |
| Madhya Pradesh | Bhopal |
| Maharashtra | Mumbai (Nagpur is the winter / second seat) |
| Manipur | Imphal |
| Meghalaya | Shillong |
| Mizoram | Aizawl |
| Nagaland | Kohima |
| Odisha | Bhubaneswar |
| Punjab | Chandigarh (shared) |
| Rajasthan | Jaipur |
| Sikkim | Gangtok |
| Tamil Nadu | Chennai |
| Telangana | Hyderabad |
| Tripura | Agartala |
| Uttar Pradesh | Lucknow |
| Uttarakhand | Dehradun (interim; Gairsain declared summer capital) |
| West Bengal | Kolkata |
| Union Territory | Capital |
|---|---|
| Delhi (NCT) | New Delhi |
| Puducherry | Puducherry |
| Jammu and Kashmir | Srinagar (summer) / Jammu (winter) |
| Ladakh | Leh (and Kargil) |
| Chandigarh | Chandigarh |
| Andaman and Nicobar Islands | Port Blair (renamed Sri Vijaya Puram; verify the latest) |
| Lakshadweep | Kavaratti |
| Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | Daman |
A handful of States separate the three functions, a classic matching trap:
A high court may serve more than one State or UT, and may sit in a town that is not the capital:
| High Court | Serves |
|---|---|
| Guwahati | Assam, and historically the wider north-east (now several have their own) |
| Punjab and Haryana (at Chandigarh) | Punjab, Haryana, and Chandigarh |
| Bombay | Maharashtra, Goa, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu |
| Madras | Tamil Nadu and Puducherry |
| Kerala | Kerala and Lakshadweep |
| Calcutta | West Bengal and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands |
| Common note | The high court need not sit in the State capital (for example, the Kerala HC is at Ernakulam, not Thiruvananthapuram) |
Verify the latest position, as new high courts have been created for several north-eastern States.
| Country | Indian States / UTs that border it |
|---|---|
| Pakistan | Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, and the UTs of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh |
| China | Ladakh (UT), Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh |
| Nepal | Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim |
| Bhutan | Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh |
| Bangladesh | West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram |
| Myanmar | Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram |
| Afghanistan | Bordered by the Indian claim over the Gilgit region (the boundary runs through territory under others' control); see india borders neighbours and strategic geography |
The State and UT map is the administrative skeleton on which internal security rests. The Union Territory model concentrates administration in the Centre, used where a region is strategically sensitive (the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir into the UTs of J&K and Ladakh in 2019, under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act), small, or of national importance (the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which also host India's only tri-services theatre command). The border States anchor the deployment of the Central Armed Police Forces: the BSF on the Pakistan and Bangladesh borders, the ITBP and the SSB on the China and Nepal-Bhutan frontiers, and the Assam Rifles on the Myanmar border. The "seven sisters" of the north-east (plus Sikkim) sit at the heart of insurgency-management, AFSPA, and connectivity policy. The separation of legislative and administrative seats and the high-court jurisdictions are the kind of static administration fact CAPF likes to test alongside the security map. See india borders neighbours and strategic geography and Index.
Formats: State-to-capital and UT-to-capital matching; which State borders a named country; the State created in a named year (Telangana 2014, Sikkim 1975, Goa 1987); the high court serving a State or UT; the State with a separate winter or summer capital; statement-based questions on the reorganisation chronology.
Authored practice (not verbatim PYQs):