The 28th State of the Union, cut from southern Bihar, with Ranchi its capital and Dumka its sub capital

Background

Jharkhand became the 28th state of the Indian Union when the Bihar Reorganisation Act brought it into existence on November 15, 2000, the birth anniversary of Bhagwan Birsa Munda. The State was taken out of what had been the southern half of Bihar, and its portal gives the area as 79,714 km², the 15th largest by area and the 14th largest by population. Dumka is its sub capital and Ranchi its capital; Hindi is the official language. Its neighbours are Bihar in the north and Uttar Pradesh in the northwest, Chhattisgarh in the west, Odisha in the south and West Bengal in the east. The State now counts 24 districts, 5 divisions, 38 sub divisions, 264 blocks and 32620 villages. Census 2011 put the population at 32,988,134 with a density of 414 persons per square kilometre. The Act listed the districts of Bihar that went into the new State, among them Bokaro, Dhanbad, Hazaribagh, Palamau, Ranchi and the two Singhbhum districts, and it allocated 14 seats to Jharkhand in the House of the People, with a High Court of its own.