Telangana is a state in India that is located on the tall Deccan Plateau in the country's south-central portion of the peninsula. With a geographical area of 112,077 km2 (43,273 sq mi) and 35,193,978 inhabitants as of the 2011 census, it is India's twelfth-most populous and eleventh-largest state. On June 2, 2014, the region—a newly created state with Hyderabad as its capital—was officially carved out of Andhra Pradesh's northwest region. Warangal, Nizamabad, Khammam, Karimnagar, and Ramagundam are some of its additional prominent cities. Telangana is surrounded by the states of Andhra Pradesh to the east and south, Maharashtra to the north, Chhattisgarh to the northeast, and Karnataka to the west. Telangana's geography comprises primarily of the Deccan Plateau, which spans an area of 27,292 km2 and is covered in lush forests (10,538 sq mi). Telangana's state is divided into 33 districts as of 2019. The area that is today known as Telangana was dominated by numerous powerful Indian dynasties during antiquity and the Middle Ages, including the Mauryans, Satavahanas, Vishnukundinas, Chalukyas, Cholas, Rashtrakutas, Kakatiyas, Delhi Sultanate, Bahmani Sultanate, and Golconda Sultanate. The Mughals of India governed the area throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb culture is well-known in the area. The Nizam of Hyderabad controlled Telangana throughout the British Raj during the 18th century. Northern Circars (Coastal Andhra) and Ceded Districts (Rayalseema), which were given to the East India Company in 1823, were no longer under the Nizams' administration. The Nizam's dominion of Hyderabad State lost its extensive coastline as a result of the British conquest of the Northern Circars, and it became a landlocked princely state with lands in the central Deccan that was surrounded on all sides by British India. The Northern Circars were thereafter controlled as a part of the Madras Presidency until 1947, when India gained its independence, at which point the presidency became the Madras state of India.
