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Maharashtra is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, Gujarat and the Union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli to the northwest, Madhya Pradesh to the northeast, Chhattisgarh to the east, Karnataka to the south, Andhra Pradesh to the southeast, and Goa to the southwest. The state covers an area of 307731 km2 (118815.6 sqmi) or 9.84% of the total geographical area of India. Mumbai, the capital city of the state, is India's largest city and the financial capital of the nation. Marathi is the official language of the state. Maharashtra is the world's second most populous first-level administrative country sub-division. Were it a nation in its own right, Maharashtra would be the world's tenth most populous country ahead of Mexico, although it is only one sixth of Mexico's territorial area. In the 17th century, the Marathas rose under the leadership of Chhatrapati Shivaji against the Mughals who were ruling a large part of India. By 1760, Maratha power had reached its zenith with a territory of over 250 million acres (1 million km2) or one-third of the Indian sub-continent. After the third Anglo-Maratha war, the empire ended and most of Maharashtra became part of Bombay state under a British Raj. After Indian independence, Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti demanded unification of all Marathi speaking regions under one state. At that time, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was of opinion that linguistic reorganizaion of states should be done with - "One state - One language" principle and not with "One language - One state" principle. He submitted a memorandum to the reorganization commission stating that, "Single Government can not administer such a huge state as United Maharashtra". The first state reorganization committee created the current Maharashtra state on 1 May 1960 (known as Maharashtra Day). The Marathi-speaking areas of Bombay state, Deccan states and Vidarbha (which was part of Central Provinces and Berar) united, under the agreement known as Nagpur Pact, to form the current state. |