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Can you locate all 83 federal subjects of Russia?
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India is 28 states and 8 union territories, and the borders between them are mostly language borders: the states were redrawn along linguistic lines in the 1950s and 60s, which is why a script on a road sign is very close to a state name. This page is the whole map, and the game asks you to put each name where it belongs, in the Latin alphabet or in the script the state actually writes in.
A state has its own elected government and its own official language or languages. A union territory is administered from Delhi, although the larger ones now have assemblies of their own, and they exist for reasons a map makes obvious: they are islands (the Andamans, Lakshadweep), enclaves left over from Portuguese and French rule (Goa was one until 1987, Puducherry and Daman still are), the capital, or a border region under direct rule.
The list moves more than most countries'. Telangana was separated from Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised in 2019, with Ladakh split off as a territory of its own. Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu were merged into one territory in 2020, which is why the name reads like a clerical error and is not one. A map printed ten years ago is already out of date, and this game follows the current arrangement.
The local name setting is the reason this game is worth playing twice. Turn it on in the start dialog and each name appears in the script of its own official language: தமிழ்நாடு for Tamil Nadu, കേരളം for Kerala, পশ্চিমবঙ্গ for West Bengal, ਪੰਜਾਬ for Punjab. Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland stay in the Latin alphabet, because that is what their official languages are written in.
The northeast is where rounds are lost, and it is worth a minute on its own. Assam is the wide one along the Brahmaputra. Arunachal Pradesh is the large one along the northern border. Meghalaya sits under Assam, Nagaland and Manipur on the eastern edge with Nagaland above Manipur, Mizoram at the bottom and Tripura poking into Bangladesh. Sikkim is not part of that cluster at all: it is on the other side of Bhutan, a long way west.
The other easy points are the small ones. Delhi, Chandigarh, Puducherry, Goa and the island territories are single clicks that people miss because they scan for something bigger.
The two groups are halves of the map rather than the conventional idea of north and south India: the split runs above Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, so those two and Odisha belong to the southern group. Either half can be played on its own from the game's start dialog, and half a map at a time is the right size for a first pass.
A strip of the southwest coast, between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, narrow enough that people click past it into Karnataka or Tamil Nadu. In the local name setting it is കേരളം, in Malayalam, which is the fastest way to recognise it from a sign.
The smallest state on the mainland, wedged between Nepal and Bhutan with West Bengal below it. It is the one people put in the northeast cluster by mistake even after they know where it is, because the eye groups small mountain states together.
The far north, high desert, and a union territory only since 2019, when Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised. It is the newest name on this map and the one most likely to be missing from a map you learned earlier.
An archipelago in the Arabian Sea, off the Kerala coast, and one of the clicks this game will not let you guess your way into. Along with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands out east, it is worth locating once deliberately rather than hunting for it under time pressure.
28 states and 8 union territories, which is 36 administrative units in total. States have their own elected governments; union territories are administered from Delhi, although Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir have assemblies of their own.
A state is governed by an assembly it elects, with its own chief minister and its own official language. A union territory is administered by the central government through a lieutenant governor or administrator. Most union territories are small: islands, former colonial enclaves, the capital, or a border region held under direct rule.
Broadly, the north and centre write Hindi or a related language in Devanagari, the south writes Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam in scripts of their own, Bengali script covers West Bengal, Assam and Tripura, and Punjab writes Gurmukhi. The game can show every name in its own script, which is what makes a road sign readable rather than merely visible.
Telangana, separated from Andhra Pradesh in 2014, is the newest state. Ladakh became a union territory in 2019 when Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu were merged into a single territory in 2020. Before that came Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand, all in 2000.
The northeastern ones, because there are eight of them in a small area and only Assam is large enough to be obvious. The trick is the order around Assam: Arunachal Pradesh along the northern border, Nagaland and Manipur down the eastern edge, Mizoram at the bottom, Tripura and Meghalaya to the southwest. Sikkim is not among them; it sits west of Bhutan.
More administrative maps in the region: Japan Prefectures, Philippines Provinces, Thailand Provinces and Vietnam Provinces.
