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Before the partition of India in 1947, about 584 princely states, also called "native states", existed in India. [1] These were not part of British India, the parts of the Indian subcontinent which were under direct British administration, but rather under indirect rule, subject to subsidiary alliances.
On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor-General in Karachi. The following day, 15 August 1947, India, now Dominion of India, became an independent country, with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of prime minister.
At the time of the British withdrawal, 565 princely states were officially recognized in the Indian subcontinent, [6] apart from thousands of zamindari estates and jagirs. In 1947, princely states covered 40% of the area of pre-independence India and constituted 23% of its population. [7]
The precise definition of an "Indian subcontinent" in a geopolitical context is somewhat contested as there is no globally accepted definition on which countries are a part of South Asia or the Indian subcontinent. [59] [60] [61] [4] Whether called the Indian subcontinent or South Asia, the definition of the geographical extent of this region ...
The British Raj (/ r ɑː dʒ / RAHJ; from Hindustani rāj, 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') [10] was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent, [11] lasting from 1858 to 1947. [12] It is also called Crown rule in India , [ 13 ] or Direct rule in India . [ 14 ]
Political subdivisions of the Indian Empire in 1909 with British India (pink) and the princely states (yellow) Before it gained independence in 1947, India (also called the Indian Empire) was divided into two sets of territories, one under direct British rule (British India), and the other consisting of princely states under the suzerainty of the British Crown, with control over their internal ...
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another, they existed between 1612 and 1947, conventionally divided into three historical periods:
Joseph E. Schwartzberg (2008) proposes that the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization (c. 2500–1900 BCE) may have known "cartographic activity" based on a number of excavated surveying instruments and measuring rods and that the use of large scale constructional plans, cosmological drawings, and cartographic material was known in India with some regularity since the Vedic period (1st ...