ABSTRACT
The State of Andhra Pradesh lies in southern India, on the eastern shores of the peninsula, and occupies much of the central plateau region known as the Deccan. To the south lies the state of Tamil Nadu, to the west, Karnataka, and to the north-west and north, Maharashtra. In the north-east there is a short border with the new state of Chhattisgarh (part of Madhya Pradesh state until 2000) and a longer border with Orissa, where Andhra Pradesh stretches an arm north-eastwards along the coast of the Bay of Bengal. In the Godavari delta Andhra Pradesh surrounds an enclave of the Union Territory of Pondicherry (Puduchcheri), the small port of Yanam. The state, the ‘land of the Andhras’, was formed on 1 November 1956, by uniting Andhra (the northern, Teluguspeaking part of the old Madras Presidency-territories which themselves can be divided into Coastal Andhra and Rayalseema) and the bulk of the former princely state of Hyderabad (the Dominions of the Nizam, which had only entered the Indian Union in 1948-this area is known as Telangana). It is the fourth-largest state in India, with an area of some 275,069 sq km (106,245 sq miles).
