- published: 01 May 2016
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A district (Zilā) is an administrative division of an Indian state or territory. Districts are further subdivided, in some cases into Sub-Divisions, and otherwise directly into tehsils or talukas.
District officials include:
Each of these officials is aided by officers of the appropriate branches of state government.
Most districts have a distinct headquarters; Mumbai is an example of a city which, despite coming under a district, does not have a district headquarters, though it does have a Collector.
There are a total of 640 Districts as per the census of 2011.
The majority of districts are named after their administrative center. 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" or "District" is appended to distinguish between the town and the district. Official websites very often use District with a capital D in this context.
The names of the 640 districts are mostly unique. There are some exceptions:
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.