ABSTRACT
The State of Arunachal Pradesh is the easternmost part of India-hence its name, the ‘land of the rising sun’. A mountainous territory, only properly brought under formal administration since independence, its former name was also descriptive-the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA). It, thus, has international borders with Bhutan in the west, the People’s Republic of China in the north (the Autonomous Region of Tibet or Xizang) and Myanmar (formerly Burma) in the east and south-east. The bulk of the state’s territory lies to the north of Assam, of which it formed a part until 1972, but it curves around the upper, western arm of that state, which stretches up the valley of the Brahmaputra, to include some territory extending south of Assam and ending in a short western border with Nagaland. The NEFA became a Union Territory in 1972 and was renamed Arunachal Pradesh, becoming the 24th state of the Union on 20 February 1987. It has an area of 83,743 sq km (32,346 sq miles), making it the largest state in the north-eastern region of India, but it is the least densely populated in the country (see below).
