Andhra Pradesh

• 1. Introduction

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  Andhra Pradesh sits on the eastern coast of southern India, where stone tools excavated from Hanumanthunipadu have been dated to approximately 247,000 years old. Those tools, shaped by archaic hominins, mark one of the earliest known traces of human activity anywhere on the subcontinent. The state they were found in is the seventh-largest in India, with a coastline stretching roughly 974 kilometres along the Bay of Bengal. Telugu, one of India's classical languages, is the mother tongue of nearly 90% of its people. The script that descended from those same ancient river valleys would eventually give its name to the region and the state itself. What dynasty first unified these river plains? Who fasted to death to carve the state out of a larger province? And how does a place with stone-age tools also host India's primary satellite launch centre?

• 2. Rivers, Ruins, and Early Empires

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  Around 300 BCE, the Greek historian Megasthenes reported in his work Indica that the Andhras living in the Godavari and Krishna river deltas commanded a military strength second only to the Mauryan empire in all of India. That was a remarkable claim about a people inhabiting a fertile delta between two of the subcontinent's great rivers. After Emperor Ashoka died and Mauryan power weakened around 200 BCE, smaller kingdoms took hold across the Andhra region. An urn containing relics of the Buddha, found at Bhattiprolu, bears one of the earliest examples of the Brahmi script. That inscription is considered a key for deciphering Tamil Brahmi, and the Kadamba script derived from it continued the evolution of both Telugu and Kannada scripts.

  The Satavahana dynasty dominated the Deccan Plateau from the 1st century BCE to the 3rd century CE. According to historian Stanley Wolpert, their capital at Dhanyakataka-Amaravathi may have been the most prosperous city in India in the 2nd century CE. The philosopher Nagarjuna, a central figure in Mahayana Buddhism, lived in this region. Mahayana later spread to China, Japan, and Korea, becoming the largest Buddhist denomination in the world. The Satavahana era also gave rise to the Amaravati school of art, considered one of the three major styles of ancient Indian art. Its influence reached South India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia.

  The Andhra Ikshvakus, with their capital at Vijayapuri, succeeded the Satavahanas in the Krishna River valley in the latter half of the 2nd century CE. The Salankayanas ruled the area between the Godavari and Krishna rivers around 300 CE, with their capital at Vengi, known today as Pedavegi. The earliest completely Telugu inscription, the Kallamalla sasanam, was engraved in 575 CE during the rule of Dhanamjaya.

• 3. Medieval Powers and Cultural Peaks

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  At the request of King Rajaraja Narendra, the poet Nannaya took up the translation of the Mahabharata into Telugu in 1025 CE, a project that would eventually be completed by Tikkana and Yerrapragada over the following centuries. Nannaya also wrote the first known treatise on Telugu grammar, titled Andhra Shabda Chintamani, in Sanskrit. These three together are considered the trinity of Telugu literary tradition. The Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi, whose dynasty lasted around five hundred years from the 7th century until 1130 CE, eventually merged with the Chola dynasty and continued to rule under its protection until 1189 CE.

  The Kakatiyas ruled present-day Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for roughly two centuries between the 12th and 14th centuries. They were eventually defeated by the Delhi Sultanate. After the Bahamani Sultanate's control, the region came under the Vijayanagara Empire during the reign of Krishnadevaraya. According to historians, Vijayanagara patronage enabled fine arts and literature to reach new heights in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Sanskrit. Carnatic music evolved into its modern form during this period. The Lepakshi group of monuments, built in this era, features mural paintings of Vijayanagara kings, Dravidian art, and inscriptions. These monuments have been placed on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.

  The Reddy kings constructed Kondaveedu Fort and Kondapalli Fort, while the Pemmasani Nayaks controlled parts of Andhra Pradesh and maintained large mercenary armies serving as the vanguard of the Vijayanagara Empire in the 16th century. Several major irrigation works date to this time, including the Cumbum tank, Mopad tank, and Vallabhapur anicut across the Tungabhadra River.

• 4. British Rule and the Birth of a State

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  Chin Qilich Khan, initially appointed as viceroy of the Deccan by the Mughal emperor in 1713, established himself as a semi-independent ruler and became the Nizam of Hyderabad. In 1765, British Lord Robert Clive obtained from the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II a grant of four circars to the British East India Company, formalised in a 1778 treaty. Four territories were ceded to the British by Nizam Ali in 1800, eventually forming the Rayalaseema region. Following the annexation of the Carnatic sultanate in 1801, the last major portion of present-day Andhra Pradesh came under British East India Company rule as part of Madras Presidency.

  The anicut at Dowleswaram, built in 1850 by Arthur Cotton, was among the irrigation facilities constructed during the British Raj. The Buckingham Canal, built between 1806 and 1878, ran parallel to the Coromandal Coast from Kakinada to Marakkanam in Tamil Nadu and served as a major water transportation route until the 1960s. Telegraph service, initiated in 1850, served for over 160 years before it was stopped on the 15th of July 2013, citing low patronage due to advances in mobile communications. Charles Philip Brown conducted pioneering work in bringing Telugu into the print era and introduced Vemana's poems to English readers.

  Kandukuri Veeresalingam is considered by scholars to be the father of the Telugu renaissance movement. He worked to promote the education of women and lower-caste people and opposed practices such as child marriage and the prohibition of widow remarriage. He was also the author of the first Telugu social novel, Rajasekhara Charitram, published in 1880. To achieve an independent state based on linguistic identity, Potti Sreeramulu fasted to death in 1952. The Telugu-speaking Andhra State was carved out of Madras State on the 1st of October 1953, with Kurnool as its capital. On the 1st of November 1956, based on the Gentlemen's Agreement, Andhra Pradesh was formed by merging Telugu-speaking areas of the former Hyderabad State, with Hyderabad as the capital.

• 5. Bifurcation and Residual State

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  In the unified state, the Indian National Congress held a monopoly on governance until 1983. Thereafter, the Telugu Desam Party, led by N. T. Rama Rao, came to power as a major alternative political force. The Nagarjuna Sagar Dam was commissioned in 1967 and the Srisailam hydro electric project in 1982, representing major infrastructure milestones of that era. When the union cabinet decided in 2009 to consider the formation of a Telangana state, the Samaikyandhra movement opposing it emerged, producing significant political turmoil.

  The new state of Telangana came into existence on the 2nd of June 2014, with the residual state continuing as Andhra Pradesh. The Telugu Desam Party formed the first government of the residual state, with Chandrababu Naidu as chief minister. In 2017, the government began operating from the new capital Amaravati, for which 33,000 acres were acquired from farmers through a land pooling scheme. In the 2019 elections, Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSR Congress Party became chief minister, winning 151 out of 175 seats. His government reorganised the state into 26 districts and introduced English as the medium of instruction in almost all government schools.

  A proposal to establish three capitals, with Amaravati as the legislative capital, Visakhapatnam as the executive capital, and Kurnool as the judicial capital, was struck down by the High Court. The government appealed that decision to the Supreme Court. In the 2024 assembly elections, the TDP-led National Democratic Alliance won 164 seats, while the YSRCP fell to 11. N. Chandrababu Naidu became chief minister of the state for the fourth time.

• 6. Land, Resources, and Economy

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  Agriculture and related activities employ 62.17% of the population, and rice is the state's staple crop. The state contributed 30% of India's fish production and held a 35% share in total seafood exports in 2022-23. According to the Economic Survey of India 2024-25, Andhra Pradesh was identified as the leading performer in agriculture and allied sectors, recording a Compounded Annual Growth Rate of 8.80%. Banaganapalle mangoes were accorded geographical indication status in 2017, and the state maintains three agricultural export zones covering mangoes and chillies.

  The state holds approximately one-third of India's limestone reserves along with significant deposits of baryte and granite. The largest known uranium reserves in the country are located in Tummalapalli village of YSR district. Nearly 225 million barrels of crude oil were produced from the Ravva block in the Krishna-Godavari basin during 1994-2011. As per the annual survey of industries for 2019-20, there were 12,582 factories employing over 681,000 people, with food products as the top employment provider.

  Satish Dhawan Space Centre, known as Sriharikota Range, on the barrier island of Sriharikota in Tirupati district, is the primary satellite launching station operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation. The defence-administered Hindustan Shipyard Limited built the first ship in India in 1948. The state hosts over 50 notified special economic zones spanning sectors including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and textiles. Gangavaram port is a deep seaport that can accommodate ocean liners up to 200,000-250,000 DWT.

• 7. Arts, Sport, and Living Culture

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  Kuchipudi, the classical dance form recognised as the official dance of Andhra Pradesh, originated in the village of Kuchipudi in Krishna district. Several renowned composers of Carnatic music, including Annamacharya, Kshetrayya, Tyagaraja, and Bhadrachala Ramadas, hailed from the state. Gurajada Apparao wrote the play Kanyasulkam in spoken dialect for the first time, and it was first presented in 1892. It is considered the greatest play in the Telugu language.

  Viswanatha Satyanarayana was conferred the first Jnanpith Award for Telugu literature in 1970. Palagummi Padmaraju's short story Galivaana won second prize in the World Short Story competition in 1952. The Telugu film industry, known as Tollywood, produces about 300 films annually. Film producer D. Ramanaidu holds a Guinness record for the most films produced by a single person. In 2023, the song Naatu Naatu from the film RRR became the first song from an Asian film to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

  In badminton, Pullela Gopichand won the All England Open Badminton Championships in 2001, becoming the second Indian to win after Prakash Padukone. P. V. Sindhu is the first Indian to become a badminton world champion and only the second to win two consecutive Olympic medals, including a gold at the 2019 World Championships. Karnam Malleswari is the first female Indian to win an Olympic medal, taking bronze in the 69 kg weightlifting event at the 2000 Olympics. The Polavaram Project, a multi-purpose reservoir project currently under construction with a capacity of 194.6 TMC, is designated a national project under the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014 and stands as one of the most significant water infrastructure undertakings the residual state faces.