Day 30 of the cycle · Union Territories

The Union Territories

India’s Union Territories are scattered across the country rather than gathered in one place — Delhi sits landlocked on the northern plains, Puducherry and Chandigarh lie hundreds of kilometres apart on opposite coasts and borders, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu occupy small enclaves on the western coastline near Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Further out, two of the territories are formed entirely of islands. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands stretch across the Bay of Bengal, their hills covered in dense tropical rainforest, while Lakshadweep is a cluster of low coral atolls in the Arabian Sea, among the smallest and most remote inhabited territories in the country. Together the group spans everything from high-density northern plains to quiet island coastline.

Each territory keeps its own administrative centre — Delhi as the seat of the national government, Puducherry as the capital of its own union territory on the Bay of Bengal, and Chandigarh, a single planned city that also serves as the shared capital of the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana.