Topics · AD 1947

Partition of India (1947)

At midnight on 14–15 August 1947, the British Raj came to an end, dividing the Indian subcontinent along religious lines into two newly independent sovereign dominions: the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.

On the map, the partition drew the Radcliffe Line through the historic provinces of Punjab in the northwest and Bengal in the east. Pakistan was established as a geographically divided state consisting of West Pakistan and East Pakistan (which later became Bangladesh in 1971), separated by over a thousand miles of Indian territory, while hundreds of princely states were integrated into the two new nations.

Drag the explorer’s year slider across 1947 and the surrounding decades to watch the subcontinent shift from colonial administration to independent modern nation-states.

Sources

• Wikidata — Partition of India
• OpenHistoricalMap

Wikidata: (Q217112)