Hyderabad is a good place to notice this, because the city itself is a product of a state border being drawn in living memory. The state it sits in did not exist in 2013. Census 2011 files Hyderabad under Andhra Pradesh, which is a small administrative fact with a large implication: the map a visitor carries in their head is younger and less fixed than they assume.
How the split was done
The Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, Act No. 6 of 2014, received Presidential assent on 1 March 2014. Its long title is brief: "An Act to provide for the reorganisation of the existing State of Andhra Pradesh and for matters connected therewith."
Section 2(a) defines the appointed day as "the day which the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint". That notification, S.O. 655(E), was issued on 4 March 2014 and appointed 2 June 2014.
Section 3 lists the districts forming Telangana — Adilabad, Karimnagar, Medak, Nizamabad, Warangal, Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Khammam as subsequently amended, and Hyderabad — "and thereupon the said territories shall cease to form part of the existing State of Andhra Pradesh".
Section 5 handled the capital: "Hyderabad in the existing State of Andhra Pradesh, shall be the common capital of the State of Telangana and the State of Andhra Pradesh for such period not exceeding ten years", after which "Hyderabad shall be the capital of the State of Telangana and there shall be a new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh".
Why a state border is a legal boundary
Article 246 distributes legislative power. Clause 1 gives Parliament exclusive power over the Union List; clause 2 gives both Parliament and state legislatures power over the Concurrent List; clause 3 provides that "the Legislature of any State has exclusive power to make laws for such State or any part thereof with respect to any of the matters enumerated in List II in the Seventh Schedule".
The State List entries that a traveller actually meets are specific and numbered.
| Entry | Subject | Where you notice it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Public order | Curfews, assembly restrictions |
| 2 | Police, including railway and village police | Every state runs its own force |
| 6 | Public health and sanitation | Smoking and sanitation enforcement |
| 8 | Intoxicating liquors | Dry states, permits, bar hours |
| 12 | State museums and monuments | Which sites are state-run |
| 13 | Roads, bridges, ferries | State highways and tolls |
| 18 | Land | Who may buy property |
| 31 | Inns and inn-keepers | Hotel licensing |
| 33 | Theatres, cinemas, sports, entertainments | Ticket rules and live events |
| 34 | Betting and gambling | Legal in one state, criminal in the next |
| 51 and 54 | Excise and sales tax on liquor and fuel | Prices change at the border |
| 57 | Taxes on vehicles | Why hire cars get stopped |
| 64 | Offences against laws in this List | States create their own offences |
Entries 51 and 54 are why fuel and alcohol prices change at a state line. Entry 64 is the one worth pausing on. A state can create criminal offences in any of its own subjects, which means an act that is lawful on one side of a line is prosecutable on the other, without any change in national law.
The First Schedule, read through, lists 28 states — the last entry being Telangana, inserted with effect from 2 June 2014 — and eight subsisting union territories, the numbering reaching nine because entry 5 was omitted when Dadra and Nagar Haveli merged with Daman and Diu in 2019.
Hyderabad's own statutory bilingualism
The Telangana Official Languages Act, 1966 provides in section 2, as substituted by Act No. 30 of 2017: "In the whole of the State of Telangana,- (a) The Telugu Language shall be the Official Language; and (b) the Urdu Language shall be the Second Official Language."
The Act's own footnote is a perfect illustration of how a new state inherits law. It was originally the Andhra Pradesh Official Languages Act, assented to on 13 May 1966, and was adapted to Telangana under section 101 of the 2014 Act by the Telangana Adaptation of Laws Order, 2016.
The borders that are genuinely closed
For a foreign visitor, a handful of Indian internal boundaries require a permit, and the governing law changed recently.
The Foreigners Act, 1946 is repealed. The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, Act No. 13 of 2025, received assent on 4 April 2025 and came into force on 1 September 2025. Its section 11 provides that "No foreigner shall enter or stay in Protected area or Restricted area or Prohibited place without a special permit or permission granted by such authority as may be specified".
The Bureau of Immigration lists the areas: the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim; the entire Andaman and Nicobar Islands; and parts of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.
Getting in at all
The e-Visa page lists nine categories, of which the tourist variants are the relevant ones: one month, multiple entry, non-extendable and non-convertible; one year from grant; and five years from grant. For the one and five year versions, maximum stay in India during one calendar year must not exceed 180 days.
Arrival is restricted to 33 designated airports — Hyderabad among them, alongside Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and others — and 19 designated seaports. You may depart from any Indian immigration check post, but you cannot arrive overland on an e-Visa. Cruise arrivals are permitted at five seaports.
Visa on arrival exists only for nationals of Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, in the UAE case only for those who previously held an Indian e-Visa or paper visa.
Once inside, a mobile connection is capped to the visa's length. Separately, foreigners and OCI card holders complete an e-Arrival card online within 72 hours before arrival. It is arrival information, not a visa.
What this guide does not cover
The Inner Line Permit system is not described beyond its legal basis. The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873 is confirmed as the authority, by reference in section 6B(4) of the Citizenship Act and in Home Ministry annual reports, but no official source on the permitted domains gave a current list of which states require it or whether it applies to Indian nationals, foreign nationals or both. It is administered by individual state home departments, and that is where to check.
No expiry date is asserted for the Hyderabad common capital arrangement. The Act says "not exceeding ten years" from 2 June 2014 and states no end date, and no notification confirming how the period ended could be found.
Medical and medical attendant e-Visa durations are not stated. The official e-Visa page gives two different figures for them in two places, and no third source resolves the conflict. Tourist e-Visa figures are internally consistent and are given above.
No page on india.gov.in was found stating the count of states and union territories in prose; the figures above are from reading the First Schedule directly.
Several of the sources above — the Bureau of Immigration pages, the e-Visa page, the India Code records — carry no publication or last-updated date. Visa and permit rules are consequential and change; verify them with the issuing authority before you travel.