List of the states

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh whose name means "Central Province" is a state located in the central part of India and its capital is Bhopal.

The state has more than 75 million inhabitants.

The state's economy is mainly based on agriculture.

The main crops in Madhya Pradesh are wheat, soybeans, sugar cane and corn. Cotton is also cultivated there.

Like all states in India, Madhya Pradesh has architectural gems, especially Hindu, Buddhist and Jainist temples.

History of Madhya Pradesh

Traces of very ancient cultures, dating back to over 2000 years BC have been unearthed in this part of India.

The town of Ujjain was already an important center in the 6th century BC.

Like many other regions of present-day India, the region was part of the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BC and the Buddhist Emperor Ashoka exercised firm control over the region.

From the first century AD, Ujjain became the major commercial center of western India thanks to its ideal location between the plains of the Ganges and the ports of the Arabian Sea.

A series of dynasties succeeded the Maurya during the centuries separating antiquity from the Middle Ages.

the Middle Age

The Rajput clans emerged from the beginning of the Middle Ages and left many temples which still testify today to the quality of Hindu temple architecture in Central India at that time.

The Delhi Sultanate invaded the northern part of the region in the 13th century, and its collapse 200 years later saw the rebirth of small independent kingdoms. Among these, the Muslim sultanate of Malwa, whose capital was Mandu.

It was then the turn of the Mughal emperors to reign over Madhya Pradesh. The Mughals would keep control until the death of Emperor Aurangzeb, son of Shah Jahan (builder of the Taj Mahal) in 1707. Their power was greatly diminished from that time on.

British colonization

The arrival of the British colonizers sounded the death knell for the Mughal Empire and all the sovereign states of the time became princely states of British India.

Indian independence

At India's independence in 1947, the political redistribution of the region resulted in the creation of the state of Madhya Pradesh in 1950 with Nagpur as its capital while other new states were created, such as Madhya Bharat, and Vindhya Pradesh and the state of Bhopal. From 1956, this redistribution was revised to form Madhya Pradesh with its current borders and with Bhopal as the capital. Later, in 2000, part of the southeastern state was separated from Madhya Pradesh to form a new state, Chhattisgarh.