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India consists of 28 states and eight union territories. All states, and the three union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry and Delhi, have elected legislatures and governments patterned on the Westminster model. The other five union territories are directly ruled by the Central government through appointed administrators. In 1956, under the States Reorganisation Act, states were formed on a linguistic basis.^[1] Since then, this structure has remained largely unchanged.

Each state or union territory is further divided into administrative districts.^[2] The districts in turn are further divided into:

• in rural areas: (named tehsils / taluks / mandals / subdivisions / circles / communes depending of the state or territory), local councils (gram panchayats), and eventually into villages and wards (gram sabhas), or
• in large urban areas: metropoles (comparable to subdistricts but with more autonomy), municipalities (or municipal corporations), and eventually into civic zones and civic wards.

For interstate cooperation and planning, the 28 states and 8 union territories are also grouped into 6 zones.

1. ↑ States Reorganisation Act, 1956. Constitution of India. Commonwealth Legal Information Institute. Archived from the original on 2008-05-16. Retrieved on 31 October 2007.; See also: Political integration of India.
2. ↑ Districts of India. Government of India. National Informatics Centre (NIC). Retrieved on 25 November 2007.

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