Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh is a state in the southern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of 162,970 km² (62,920 sq mi) and tenth-most-populous state, with 49,577,103 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the north-west, Chhattisgarh to the north, Odisha to the north-east, Tamil Nadu to the south, Karnataka to the west and the Bay of Bengal to the east. It has the second longest coastline in India after Gujarat, of about 974 km (605 mi). Andhra State was the first state to be formed on a linguistic basis in India on 1 October 1953. On 1 November 1956, Andhra State was merged with the Telugu-speaking areas ofHyderabad State to form United Andhra Pradesh. On 2 June 2014, these merged areas of Hyderabad State were bifurcated from United Andhra Pradesh to form the new state Telangana. The present form of Andhra is similar to Andhra state, but some mandals like Bhadrachalam are still included in Telangana. Amaravati serves as the capital of the state with the largest city being Visakhapatnam.