Districts in India: Total Number, State List and Key Facts
Gajendra Singh Godara
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Roughly 800 districts spread across 28 states and 8 Union Territories
The number is not fixed. Published counts range from 784 to 806
Uttar Pradesh leads, with 75; Goa has the fewest, with 2
Largest by area: Kutch, Gujarat, about 45,652 sq km
Smallest by area: Mahé, Puducherry, about 8.69 sq km
Rajasthan's count dropped from 50 to 41 in December 2024
Four different figures come back when you search this question. Below is why they diverge, and what you should actually write.
India has approximately 800 districts. Four late-2026 figures doing the rounds for the total number of districts in India include 802, 800+, 787 and 784, depending on who did the counting and when. Ask for the no of districts in India, and whichever of those a page last copied is what you will get.
Download List of All Districts in India PDF
Three reasons the figures disagree:
1. States create districts by executive order. Parliament has no role, no constitutional amendment is needed, and no central notification follows. A state cabinet decides, the gazette carries it, and the count moves that same day.
2. Sources count different things. A few totals fold in Census districts that are not administrative districts, like Mahé and Yanam in Puducherry. Others included the temporary Maha Kumbh Mela district. Some leave out the Itanagar Capital Complex, which has a Deputy Commissioner but is not formally a district.
3. The data lags. Most lists trail the Local Government Directory or the 2011 Census, both of which lag behind actual gazette notifications.
What to write in an exam. Say "approximately 800" and add that the number shifts with state reorganisation. A single figure you cannot defend is riskier than a range you can explain.
For comparison: the 2011 Census recorded 640 districts, which puts the growth since then at roughly 25%.
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The India all state district list below carries the total district in India by state as of late 2026, and any India district name you need can be found through its state row. Rows marked with a note are the ones where published sources openly disagree.
# | State | Districts |
1 | Uttar Pradesh | 75 |
2 | Madhya Pradesh | 55 (some sources say 57) |
3 | Rajasthan | 41 (reduced from 50 in Dec 2024) |
4 | Bihar | 38 |
5 | Tamil Nadu | 38 |
6 | Maharashtra | 36 |
7 | Assam | 35 |
8 | Chhattisgarh | 33 |
9 | Gujarat | 33 |
10 | Telangana | 33 |
11 | Odisha | 30 |
12 | Karnataka | 31 |
13 | Andhra Pradesh | 26 |
14 | Jharkhand | 24 |
15 | Punjab | 23 |
16 | Haryana | 22 |
17 | West Bengal | 23 |
18 | Kerala | 14 |
19 | Uttarakhand | 13 |
20 | Himachal Pradesh | 12 |
21 | Arunachal Pradesh | 26 |
22 | Manipur | 16 |
23 | Meghalaya | 12 |
24 | Nagaland | 16 |
25 | Mizoram | 11 |
26 | Tripura | 8 |
27 | Sikkim | 6 |
28 | Goa | 2 |
Union territories
# | Union Territory | Districts |
1 | Jammu and Kashmir | 20 |
2 | Delhi | 11 |
3 | Ladakh | 7 (5 new districts notified April 2026) |
4 | Puducherry | 4 |
5 | Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu | 3 |
6 | Andaman and Nicobar Islands | 3 |
7 | Chandigarh | 1 |
8 | Lakshadweep | 1 |
Two rows in that table are wrong on most competing pages, and both are recent. The fact-check section below has the details.
Administrative district comparison, checked 26 October 2026. Uttar Pradesh has 75 listed districts and Goa has three, including Kushavati. Counts and labels follow the accompanying full-list compilation. Source: IGOD and State government portals; chart: PadhAI.
While you revise, keep our India map with states and union territories open to place these on a map.
District revision records. Kachchh: 45,674 km² on its official district portal, checked 2026. Mahé: 9 km² in the official Census 2011 demography table. Population: Thane 11,060,148 and Dibang Valley 8,004, Census 2011. The Thane figure predates Palghar’s 2014 separation. Design: PadhAI.
On Kutch. The district is bigger than several Indian states, and bigger than Denmark or Switzerland too. Pakistan borders it to the north-west and Rajasthan to the north-east, and inside sits the Rann of Kutch, a vast seasonal salt marsh. For the scale, see our Gujarat map.
On Mahé. By area, the smallest district in India is Mahé, one of Puducherry's four districts, an enclave with Kerala's North Malabar region on every side. Some official datasets log Mahé as a Census district rather than a full administrative one, which is part of why national totals diverge.
On population figures, read carefully. Both records come out of Census 2011, now fifteen years old. Thane was split in 2014 to carve out Palghar district, so its current population is far below the 2011 figure. Exam keys still rely on Census 2011, even though the boundaries it describes have long since changed.
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A district in India is the primary administrative subdivision below a state or Union Territory, and the level at which policy actually reaches citizens.
At the top sits the District Magistrate (DM), who is also called the District Collector or Deputy Commissioner depending on which state you are in. The post is usually held by an IAS officer and brings together three roles that stay separate in most countries:
Role | Function |
Collector | Land revenue, land records, land acquisition |
District Magistrate | Law and order, executive magistracy, disaster management |
Deputy Commissioner | Development administration, scheme implementation, coordination |
Typical revenue hierarchy and core district-head functions. The titles DM, Collector and Deputy Commissioner differ by jurisdiction and often refer to the same office. The Zila Parishad is the elected district panchayat. Diagram: PadhAI; sources: government revenue portals and Constitution Article 243B.
Pack that much into one office and the Collector gets called the "little king" of the district, a colonial phrase that still shows up, not always with approval.
Below the district: District → Sub-division (Sub-Divisional Magistrate) → Tehsil or Taluka (Tahsildar) → Village.
Beside the DM sit the Superintendent of Police and the District Forest Officer, so one officer does not carry all three functions. Rural local self-government runs through the Zila Parishad, the elected district panchayat.
The constitutional angle, which gets tested
Most pages skip this one entirely. The Constitution does not provide for the creation of districts.
Article 3 governs the creation of States, which needs a Bill in Parliament on the President's recommendation.
Districts are created by State governments under their executive power, through gazette notification. Parliament sits this one out.
That asymmetry is the reason the count moves. A new state is a national constitutional act. A new district is a cabinet decision in a state capital.
Districts do turn up in the Constitution in specific places:
Article 243ZD sets up a District Planning Committee in every district, to pull together panchayat and municipal plans
Article 243D and the Panchayati Raj provisions put the district at the top of the three-tier panchayat system
The Sixth Schedule creates Autonomous District Councils for tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram
For deeper reading on local-government provisions, visit the polity notes hub.
Grasping the drivers helps a Mains answer more than memorising a total.
Why states create new districts:
Administrative reach. A smaller district brings the headquarters nearer to citizens
Population pressure. Once a district tips into the millions, it becomes unwieldy
Difficult terrain. Hill, desert and forest areas work better in smaller units
Political demand. Regional movements regularly press for district status
And why states sometimes abolish them. Almost nobody writes about this part.
December 2024 saw Rajasthan cancel 9 districts that the previous government had set up, along with 3 divisions, pulling the state from 50 back to 41. The official reasoning was that several were not financially or administratively viable.
The takeaway: the number can go down as well as up. Any page treating district counts as a one-way staircase has misread the topic. Pair this with our Rajasthan map.
The most recent change at the other end. Ladakh notified 5 new districts on 27 April 2026, taking the Union Territory from 2 to 7. The expansion was designed to carry administration across a vast, thinly populated and strategically sensitive region. Most published lists still carry Ladakh at 2 or 4.
District reorganisation works in both directions. Rajasthan went from 50 to 41 after its December 2024 reversal. Ladakh went from two to seven in April 2026 and to eight with Sankoo’s notification on 16 October 2026. Sources: Rajasthan government directory and Ladakh administration/Gazette; design: PadhAI.
This straddles GS Paper I geography and GS Paper II polity and governance.
Prelims tends to ask: the largest and smallest districts by area and population; which state has the most and the fewest; what sits below the district; the Sixth Schedule's Autonomous District Councils and which states they cover; and the District Planning Committee under Article 243ZD.
Mains asks about the office, not the count. Whether the colonial Collector model still suits a developmental state, the pull between the DM's magisterial and developmental roles, and whether creating more districts actually improves service delivery or just adds establishment costs. On the last one, Rajasthan's reversal gives you a ready example.
A caution on rote-learning the table. UPSC has not asked candidates to recall district counts for every state, and the figures go stale fast. Learn the records, the structure and the constitutional position; treat the table as reference.
Shape your answers with our guide to UPSC Mains answer writing practice, and pull past questions by topic from our previous year questions. To revise visually on the wider subject, our geography hub and UPSC maps library are the places to go.
Frequently asked question (FAQs)
How many districts are there in India?
Which state has the most and the fewest districts?
Which is the smallest district in India?
Who creates districts in India?
Can the number of districts in a state decrease?
Where districts in India are concerned, the honest answer in an exam is a range, not a figure. Roughly 800, across 28 states and 8 Union Territories, changing whenever a state cabinet decides it should.
That instability is the insight itself. With the Constitution silent on how districts are created, the call rests entirely with state governments, and the call is as much political as administrative. Rajasthan's 2024 reversal and Ladakh's 2026 expansion are two sides of one fact.
For the exam, carry the four records, the administrative hierarchy and the constitutional position. Those will not go stale. The table will.
District counts here are drawn from state gazette notifications, the Local Government Directory and published 2026 compilations, each of which diverges from the others. Population and area figures come from Census 2011 unless noted, and predate several reorganisations. The Rajasthan reduction of December 2024 and the Ladakh notification of 27 April 2026 are both reflected. Check the relevant state government notification before relying on any single figure.
Gajendra Singh Godara
Ex-UPSC Aspirant | Exam Preparation Expert
Gajendra Singh Godara is an IIT Bombay graduate and a UPSC aspirant with 4 attempts, including multiple Prelims and Mains appearances. He specializes in Polity, Modern History, International Relations, and Economy. At PadhAI, Gajendra leverages his firsthand exam experience to simplify complex concepts, creating high-efficiency study materials that help aspirants save time and stay focused.
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