Administrative divisions of India

The administrative divisions of India are subnational administrative units of India; they are composed of a nested hierarchy of administrative divisions.

Indian states and territories frequently use different local titles for the same level of subdivision (e.g., the mandals of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana correspond to tehsils of Uttar Pradesh and other Hindi-speaking states but to talukas or taluks of Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu).

The smaller subdivisions (villages and blocks) exist only in rural areas. In urban areas, urban local bodies exist instead of these rural subdivisions.

Tiers of India

The diagram below outlines the six tiers of administrative divisions:

Template:Tree chart/start Template:Tree chart/end Notes:

• Divisions under State: In some states, divisions do not exist, and the administrative units are split directly into districts. In these states, the division concept is either absent or only for administrative purposes.
• Within a district, there are multiple subdivisions such as Subdivisions, Tehsils/Taluks, and Villages, primarily concerned with land revenue administration.
• Separately, the Block, also known as the Community Development Block, is a subdivision of the district used exclusively for rural development purposes. It falls under the Rural Development Department and is not related to revenue administration.
• Nomenclature Differences:
  • The term "Division" is often used as "Revenue Division" or "Region" in some states.
  • In many states, Districts are officially known as Revenue Districts.
  • In some states, a division under a district may be referred to as a Revenue Division, which is equivalent to a sub-division in other states.
  • The terminology for administrative units like Taluk or Tehsil or Sub-district varies widely; for example, Tehsil in Uttar Pradesh is referred to as Taluk in Tamil Nadu, and Circle in some northeastern states and mandal in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Tiers of Government

The diagram below outlines the three tiers of government : union, state and local government. Template:Tree chart/start

Sub-national zones

Administrative zones

File:Zonal divisions of Republic of India.jpg

The six zones of India

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, 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 utilized 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 organizing functions and inviting artistes from other zones.

Zone	Zonal Centre	Extent
South Culture Zone	South Zone Cultural Centre, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu	Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Telangana
South Central Culture Zone	South-Central Zone Cultural Centre, Nagpur, Maharashtra	Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana
North Culture Zone	North Zone Cultural Centre, Patiala, Punjab	Chandigarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand
North Central Culture Zone	North Central Zone Cultural Centre, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh	Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand
East Culture Zone	East Zone Cultural Centre, Kolkata, West Bengal	Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur, Odisha, Sikkim, Tripura, West Bengal
North East Culture Zone	North East Zone Cultural Centre, Dimapur, Nagaland	Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura
West Culture Zone	West Zone Cultural Centre, Udaipur, Rajasthan	Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan

States and union territories within zones

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

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

File:Autonomous divisions of India.svg

Autonomous councils in India

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.

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.

Districts within divisions

States and territories (or divisions) are further subdivided into districts (zilla), of which there are 797 (as of Nov 2023). A district in India, officially referred to as a revenue district, is a basic administrative unit under a state or union territory. Each District is headed by an IAS officer called District Collector/District Magistrate/Deputy Commissioner.
The District serves as the key administrative subdivision of the Land Revenue Department, and is commonly known as a Revenue District. While it is a revenue unit, the same district boundaries are often used by other departments (e.g., police, education, health) for administrative convenience, making the district a multipurpose unit.

The district's police administration is under the purview of the Superintendent of Police (SP), an officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS). Police districts are generally coterminous with revenue districts or subdivisions thereof, facilitating administrative efficiency. Concurrently, the management of forest and wildlife resources within the district falls under the jurisdiction of the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), an officer of the Indian Forest Service (IFS).

Sectoral development is looked after by the district head of each development department such as Public Works, Health, Education, Agriculture, Animal husbandry, Panchayat, Rural Development etc. These officers belong to the various state services.

Subdivisions

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Subdistricts

In some instances, tehsils (sub-districts) overlap with "blocks" (panchayat union blocks or community development blocks) and come under the land and revenue department, headed by tehsildar; and blocks come under the rural development department, headed by the block development officer and serve different government administrative functions over the same or similar geographical area.

Local government

Urban level

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, #India, 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

File:India climatic zone map en.svg

Climatic zones of India.

File:India Natural vegetation.svg

Vegetation zones of India.

India

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

India outside India

• Indian Antartica
• 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

See also

• Regions of Asia

External links

• CityMayors.com