🗺 1947 → Today
Undivided India and India today
British India just before Partition in 1947 — British provinces and princely states — laid over India as it is today, in its official outline. Slide between the two, and see which areas joined later.
- British India, 1947: British provinces and princely states
- India today (official outline)
- Partition boundaries, 1947
- Not part of British India in 1947
- Princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, 1947
- Princely state — marked at its capital; boundary not drawn
India’s outline follows the Government of India’s official depiction. The 1947 outline is computed from the same map data at country level; provinces and princely states will be drawn in a later version.
How the map changed
British India in 1947
Partition divided British India into India and Pakistan. Pakistan had two parts, West and East Pakistan, separated by a long expanse of Indian territory.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 1 ↗As many as 565 princely states became legally independent when British paramountcy lapsed; during the Raj they covered about one-third of the subcontinent’s area.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 1 ↗ 📘 NCERT Class 12, Framing the Constitution ↗In 1971 the people of East Pakistan fought to liberate Bangladesh from Pakistan, and India supported the freedom struggle.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 4 ↗Provinces and princely states in 1947
From 15 August 1947 two Dominions, India and Pakistan, were set up. Pakistan was to be East Bengal, West Punjab, Sind and British Baluchistan — and the North West Frontier Province, if its referendum chose Pakistan. The rest of British India became India.
✓ Indian Independence Act 1947, sections 1–2 ↗The provinces of Bengal and the Punjab ceased to exist. In their place came East Bengal and West Bengal, and West Punjab and East Punjab, with the boundaries set by a boundary commission. The district of Sylhet in Assam could join East Bengal by referendum.
✓ Indian Independence Act 1947, sections 3–4 ↗British suzerainty over the Indian States lapsed. The rulers of most states signed the Instrument of Accession, agreeing to become part of the Union of India; Junagadh, Hyderabad, Kashmir and Manipur proved more difficult.
✓ Indian Independence Act 1947, section 7 ↗ 📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 1 ↗In October 1947 Pakistan sent tribal infiltrators to capture Kashmir; India sent military help after the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession with India. Its 1947 extent is today’s Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, as the Government of India defines them.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 7 ↗The Nizam signed a Standstill Agreement with India in November 1947. In September 1948 the Indian army moved in; the Nizam surrendered and Hyderabad acceded to India. Parts of the old state are today in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 1 ↗Maharaja Bodhachandra Singh signed the Instrument of Accession a few days before Independence. Elections were held in June 1948, and the Merger Agreement was signed in September 1949.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 1 ↗Joined India after a plebiscite confirmed the people’s desire to join India.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 1 ↗Its Nawab was among the rulers averse to joining the Constituent Assembly.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 1 ↗Only Jammu and Kashmir is drawn: the Government of India defines its 1947 extent. We have found no verified digital map of the other princely states or of the provinces, so they are marked by location or described here rather than drawn.
🗺 How India’s states were formed →
Inside today’s India, but not in British India in 1947
A protectorate at independence — not part of India; became a state of India in 1975.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 7 ↗ Event →Portuguese territory; Portugal refused to withdraw after 1947. Liberated in 1961.
📘 NCERT Class 12, Politics in India since Independence, Ch. 7 ↗ Event →Portuguese: Dadra and Nagar Haveli were freed on 2 August 1954; Daman and Diu were liberated in 1961.
✓ UT Administration of Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu ↗French possessions, transferred de facto to the Indian Union on 1 November 1954.
✓ Government of Puducherry — History ↗ Event →An enclave of Muscat & Oman, bought by Pakistan in 1958 — not part of British India. Its old boundary is not shown.
✓ Balochistan High Court — Gwadar district history ↗How this map is made: India today is the official outline already used across YugMap. The 1947 outline joins the outlines of today’s India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and removes Sikkim, the Portuguese territories and the French settlements, using public-domain Natural Earth boundaries. Nothing is drawn by hand.