A district ('' zila''), also known as revenue district, is an

administrative division Administrative divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

of an Indian state or territory. In some cases, districts are further subdivided into sub-divisions, and in others directly into ''tehsils'' or ''talukas''. , there are a total of 780 districts in India. This count includes Mahe and Yanam which are Census districts and not Administrative districts and also includes the temporary Maha Kumbh Mela district but excludes Itanagar Capital Complex which has a Deputy Commissioner but is not an official district.

District Administration

;The District officials include: * District & Sessions Judge (Principal & additional), an officer belonging to the Indian Judicial Service (state), responsible for

justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

and passing orders of

imprisonment Imprisonment or incarceration is the restraint of a person's liberty for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is considered " false imprisonment". Impri ...

, including the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

and also have limited administrative power. Also have appellate jurisdiction over all subordinate courts in the district for both civil and criminal matters. *

District Magistrate The district magistrate, also known as the district collector or deputy commissioner, is a career civil servant who serves as the executive head of a district's administration in India. The specific name depends on the state or union territo ...

Deputy Commissioner A deputy commissioner is a police, income tax or administrative official in many countries. The rank is commonplace in police forces of Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, usually ranking below the Commissioner. Australia In all Aust ...

District Collector The district magistrate, also known as the district collector or deputy commissioner, is a career civil servant who serves as the executive head of a district's administration in India. The specific name depends on the state or union territo ...

, an officer of the

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the Public administration, administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. The IAS is one of the three All India Services along with the Indian Police Service (IPS) and the Indian ...

, in charge of

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

and

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

collection * Superintendent of Police or Senior Superintendent of Police or Deputy Commissioner of Police, an officer belonging to the

Indian Police Service The Indian Police Service (IPS) is a civil service under the All India Services. It replaced the Indian Imperial Police in 1948, a year after India became Partition of India, independent from the British Empire. Along with the Indian Admini ...

, responsible for maintaining law and order. Superintendent of Police is incharge of the police administration of the respective police district. The police district is either coterminous with the revenue district or divided into two within the revenue district. *Deputy Conservator of Forests, an officer belonging to the

Indian Forest Service The Indian Forest Service (IFS) is the premier forest service of India. .The IFS is one of the three All India Services along with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) & the Indian Police Service (IPS). It was constituted in the year 1966 un ...

, entrusted with the management of the forests, environment and wildlife of the district *Other district-level officials of respective state government departments, such as the District Educational Officer, District Medical Officer, District Supply Officer, District Fire Officer, District Development Commissioner, etc. Each of these officials is aided by officers from the appropriate branch of the state government. Most districts have a distinct headquarters; but the districts of Mumbai City in

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

,Official site of Mumbai City Collectorate (A district)
/ref>

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

Telangana Telangana is a States and union territories of India, state in India situated in the Southern India, south-central part of the Indian subcontinent on the high Deccan Plateau. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ele ...

, and

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

are examples where there are no distinct district headquarters, although there are district collectors.

Overview

Naming

The majority of districts are named after their administrative centre. Some are referred to by two names, a traditional one and one that uses the name of the town that is the headquarters. Since most of the districts are named after a town, the word "district" is appended to distinguish between the town and the district.

Similar names

Districts sharing their name with another district in India

Aurangabad district, Bihar Aurangabad district is one of the thirty-eight districts of Bihar state, India. It is currently a part of the Red Corridor. Aurangabad is also called "Chittorgarh" of Bihar because the number of Suryavanshi Rajputs is very high here. Aurangaba ...

and

Aurangabad district, Maharashtra Aurangabad district (Marathi pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, �u̯ɾəŋɡaːbaːd̪, officially known as Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district, is one of the 36 Districts of Maharashtra, districts of the state of Maharashtra in western India. ...

* Balrampur district, Chhattisgarh and Balrampur district, Uttar Pradesh * Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh and Bijapur district, Karnataka * Bilaspur district, Chhattisgarh and

Bilaspur district, Himachal Pradesh Bilaspur is a District (India), district of Himachal Pradesh, India. Its capital is in the town of Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh, Bilaspur. The district has an area of 1,167 km2, and a population of 381,956. As of 2011 it is the third leas ...

Hamirpur district, Himachal Pradesh Hamirpur district is in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The headquarters of the district are in the town of Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, Hamirpur. With an area of , it is the smallest district of Himachal Pradesh. History Carved out from K ...

and Hamirpur district, Uttar Pradesh * Pratapgarh district, Rajasthan and Pratapgarh district, Uttar Pradesh * Raigarh district, Chhattisgarh and Raigad district, Maharashtra

Districts sharing their name with a district in a neighbouring country in South Asia

* Bhojpur district, Bihar shares a name with ''

Bhojpur District, Nepal Bhojpur District ( ) is one of 14 districts of Koshi Province of eastern Nepal. The district's area is 1,507 km2 with a population of 182,459 (2011). The administrative center is Bhojpur. It is surrounded by Dhankuta and Sankhuwasabha ...

'' * Daman district, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu shares a name with '' Daman District, Afghanistan'' * Dang district, Gujarat shares a name with ''

Dang District, Nepal Dang District (, ) is a district of Lumbini Province located in the Inner Terai Valleys of Nepal, Inner Terai Rapti Zone of midwestern Nepal. Dang Valley is the first largest valley of Asia and World's second largest valley surrounded by Sival ...

'' *

Ghaziabad district, Uttar Pradesh Ghaziabad district () is a largely suburban district of Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. It is also a core part of the National Capital Region. The city of Ghaziabad is the administrative headquarters of the district. This district is ...

shares a name with '' Ghaziabad District, Afghanistan'' * Gopalganj district, Bihar shares a name with '' Gopalganj District, Bangladesh'' * Hyderabad district, Telangana shares a name with ''

Hyderabad District, Pakistan Hyderabad District ( ), is a Districts of Pakistan, district of Sindh, Pakistan. Its capital is the city of Hyderabad, Sindh, Hyderabad. The district is the second most urbanized in Sindh, after Karachi, with 80% of its population residing in ur ...

'' * Lalitpur district, Uttar Pradesh shares a name with ''

Lalitpur District, Nepal Lalitpur District (, in Bagmati Province, is one of the List of districts of Nepal, seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Lalitpur, Nepal, Lalitpur as its district headquarters, covers an area of and has a population (2001) of 337, ...

'' * Poonch district, Jammu and Kashmir, shares a name with ''

Poonch District, Pakistan Poonch District () is a district of Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir in the Kashmir#Dispute, disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supporte ...

'' (the two were, prior to Partition, one district – which got split by the

Line of Control The Line of Control (LoC) is a military control line between the Indian and Pakistanicontrolled parts of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir—a line which does not constitute a legally recognized international boundary, but ser ...

, since then the two parts have been administered separately)

Districts sharing names with those outside of South Asia entirely

* Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, with '' Dhar District, Yemen'' * Banda district, Uttar Pradesh with '' Banda District, Republic of the Congo'' and '' Banda District, Ghana'' * Mansa district, Punjab, with '' Mansa District, Zambia''. * Salem district, Tamil Nadu with

Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore (Massachusetts), North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem was one ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, Salem,

Brebes Regency Brebes (, , ) is a Regencies of Indonesia, regency () in the northwestern part of Central Java province in Indonesia. It covers an area of 1,769.62 km2, and it had a population of 1,733,869 at the 2010 CensusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

, Salem,

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

Indore district Indore District () is a List of districts of Madhya Pradesh, district of Madhya Pradesh state in central India. It is believed that the city is named after its Indreshwar Mahadev Temple, Where Indra is the presiding deity as Indra+Oor. The Gu ...

Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...

with Indore, West Virginia

States

The following tables list the population details of various states. The columns include the

hierarchical administrative subdivision codes A geocode is a code that represents a geographic entity (location or object). It is a unique identifier of the entity, to distinguish it from others in a finite set of geographic entities. In general the ''geocode'' is a human-readable and sh ...

, the district name, district headquarters, 2011 census population, area in square kilometres, and the population density per square kilometre.

Andhra Pradesh (AP)

Arunachal Pradesh (AR)

Assam (AS)

Bihar (BR)

Chhattisgarh (CG)

Goa (GA)

Gujarat (GJ)

Haryana (HR)

Himachal Pradesh (HP)

Jharkhand (JH)

Karnataka (KA)

Kerala (KL)

Madhya Pradesh (MP)

Maharashtra (MH)

Manipur (MN)

Meghalaya (ML)

Mizoram (MZ)

Nagaland (NL)

Odisha (OD)

Punjab (PB)

Rajasthan (RJ)

Sikkim (SK)

Tamil Nadu (TN)

Telangana (TG)

Tripura (TR)

Uttar Pradesh (UP)

Uttarakhand (UK)

West Bengal (WB)

Union territories

Andaman and Nicobar (AN)

Chandigarh (CH)

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (DD)

Jammu and Kashmir (JK)

Ladakh (LA)

Lakshadweep (LD)

National Capital Territory of Delhi (DL)

Puducherry (PY)

Footnotes

References

; * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Districts of India
Indian Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology website {{DEFAULTSORT:Districts Of India India 3 Districts, India * Districts of India