Districts of West Bengal

A district in West Bengal is governed by a district collector or district magistrate, appointed either by the Indian Administrative Service or the West Bengal Civil Service. Each district is subdivided into Sub-Divisions, governed by a sub-divisional magistrate, and again into Blocks. Blocks consists of panchayats (village councils) and town municipalities.

There are 19 districts in West Bengal, under 3 divisions:
*Burdwan Division
**Bankura district
**Bardhaman district
**Birbhum district
**East Midnapore (Purba Medinipur)
**Hooghly district
**Purulia
**West Midnapore (Paschim Medinipur)
*Jalpaiguri Division
**Cooch Behar district
**Darjeeling district
**Jalpaiguri district
**Malda district
**North Dinajpur district (Uttar Dinajpur)
**South Dinajpur district (Dakshin Dinajpur)
*Presidency Division
**Howrah district
**Kolkata district
**Murshidabad district
**Nadia district
**North 24 Parganas district (Uttar 24 Parganas)
**South 24 Parganas district (Dakshin 24 Parganas)

Major cities and towns in West Bengal

The capital and largest city of the state is Kolkata — the third-largest urban agglomerationcite web
url=http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gcis&lng=en&dat=32&geo=-104&srt=pnan&col=aohdq&va=&pt=a
title=India: metropolitan areas|accessdate=2006-10-26|publisher=World Gazetteer] and the fourth-largest citycite web
url=http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gcis&lng=en&dat=32&geo=-104&srt=npan&col=aohdq&pt=c&va=&srt=pnan
title=India: largest cities and towns and statistics of their population
accessdate=2006-10-26|publisher=World Gazetteer] in India. Kolkata is a city district. Siliguri, an economically important town in Darjeeling district, is strategically located in the northeastern Siliguri Corridor (Chicken's Neck) of India. Asansol, Durgapur and Raniganj are cities in the western industrial belt; all of them are in Bardhaman district. Other major cities and towns in West Bengal are Howrah in Howrah district, Haldia in Purba Medinipur district , Kharagpur in Paschim Medinipur district, Burdwan in Bardhaman district, Darjeeling in Darjeeling district, Midnapore in Paschim Medinipur district, Tamluk in Purba Medinipur district, Malda in Malda district and Cooch Behar in Cooch Behar district.

History of districts in West Bengal

* Cooch Behar district was a princely state named Koch Bihar till 20th August 1949, when the state formally agreed to join India. Transfer of administration started on 12th September 1949 and finally, it became a district of West Bengal from 19th January 1950. [cite web
url = http://coochbehar.gov.in/HTMfiles/brief_history.html
title = Brief History of Cooch Behar
publisher = Official website of Cooch Behar district
accessdate = 2008-09-10]
* States Reorganisation Act of 1956 advised revision of boundaries of Indian states based on linguistic lines. During this time, the then West Dinajpur district was enlarged with the addition of some areas from Bihar.
* Partition on 24 Parganas: The district of 24 parganas was bifurcated into two districts, viz. North 24 Parganas district and South 24 Parganas district, with effect from March 1, 1986. North 24 parganas was formed with the Barasat sadar, Barrackpore, Bongaon and Basirhat subdivisions; South 24 parganas consisted of two subdivision: Alipore sadar and Diamond Harbour. [cite book
last = Mandal
first = Asim Kumar
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=jbKGojVTWGcC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=24+parganas+history+divide+two+district&source=web&ots=PHyZZn5Uu2&sig=uy8P9MDvn3wbnTS7GPMi53I3cH0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA169,M1
title = Google books preview from The Sundarbans of India: A Development Analysis
publisher = Indus Publishing
pages = 168-169
isbn = 8173871434
date = 2003
accessdate = 2008-09-04]
* Partition of West Dinajpur: With effect from April 1, 1992, the West Dinajpur district was bifurcated into North Dinajpur district and South Dinajpur district. [ [http://uttardinajpur.nic.in/ Official website of North Dinajpur district from Government of India Portal] accessed 2008-09-01] [ [http://ddinajpur.nic.in/Historical_Perspective/historical_perspective.html Historical Perspective] from Official website of South Dinajpur district from Government of India Portal, accessed 2008-09-01]
* Partition of Midnapore: With effect from January 1, 2002, erstwhile Midnapore district was divided into two districts: Purba Medinipur district and Paschim Medinipur district. With the division of the district, the subdivisions of Medinipur Sadar, Kharagpur, Jhargram, and Ghatal were placed in Paschim Medinipur, with Midnapore as the district headquarter of only the western half. The subdivisions of Tamluk, Contai, and Haldia were placed in the eastern district with district headquarters at Tamluk. [cite web
last = Jana
first = Naresh
date = 2001-12-31
url = http://www.telegraphindia.com/1011231/national.htm#head3
title = Tamluk readies for giant's partition
format = HTML
accessdate = 2008-09-01] Egra subdivision, a new subdivision of Purba Medinipur, was created out of the erstwhile Contai subdivision.

District-wise statistics

References

External links

* [http://www.wbgov.com/ Official website of Government of West Bengal]