Skip to content
India in Nutshell
Sign in
Suggest a correction

India's map and territory: the official position

AI-drafted · awaiting admin review

The map on this site follows the official boundaries of India as published by the Survey of India, including the full Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.

Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh

  • On 26 October 1947, Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession and the entire State of Jammu & Kashmir acceded to India.
  • On 22 February 1994, both Houses of Parliament unanimously resolved that the State of Jammu & Kashmir has been, is and shall be an integral part of India, and that Pakistan must vacate the areas it occupied through aggression.
  • Under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, two Union Territories were formed on 31 October 2019. Under the official map of 2 November 2019, the Union Territory of Ladakh has the Leh and Kargil districts. The Leh district includes the areas of Gilgit, Gilgit Wazarat, Chilhas and the Tribal Territory as they stood in 1947. The rest, including Mirpur and Muzaffarabad, is in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
  • The areas held by Pakistan are Pakistan-occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan, which are under its illegal occupation. Aksai Chin, part of Ladakh, is under China's illegal occupation. The Shaksgam valley was illegally ceded by Pakistan to China under the so-called boundary agreement of 1963, which India has never recognised.
  • Article 370 was abrogated in August 2019. The Supreme Court upheld this on 11 December 2023.

Arunachal Pradesh

  • Arunachal Pradesh is an integral and inalienable part of India. India rejects attempts by other countries to assign "invented" names to places in the State. It became a full State on 20 February 1987.

Why the map matters

  • The Survey of India is the national mapping agency. Maps of India published in India must show the external boundaries as officially depicted.
  • Section 2 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1961 makes it an offence to question the territorial integrity or frontiers of India in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the country.
  • The map shown in Know India is simplified for the screen. For the authoritative map, see the Survey of India.

Sources