The state of Andhra Pradesh has 28 districts. Visakhapatnam district is the smallest district in area while Kadapa district is the largest. Tirupati district is the most populous whereas Polavaram district is the least populous district. The districts are further divided into one, two or more revenue divisions, which are further subdivided into mandals for administrative purposes.
At the time of Independence the present day Andhra Pradesh was a part of the Madras State. The Telugu speaking dominant regions Kostaandhra and Rayalaseema were separated from Madras State to form Andhra State in 1953.
As Andhra State, it consisted of 11 districts, which are Anantapur, Chittoor, East Godavari, Guntur, Kadapa, Krishna, Kurnool, Nellore, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam and West Godavari.
As a result of the 1956 States Reorganisation Act, the state's boundaries were re-organized following linguistic lines. On 1 November 1956, the Andhra State and the Telangana region of the Hyderabad State were merged to form the Andhra Pradesh which is retrospectively referred to as United Andhra Pradesh.
As united Andhra Pradesh, it consisted of 21 districts, with 10 districts of Telangana region. In the year 1959, Bhadrachalam and Nuguru Venkatapuram taluks of East Godavari district, which are on the other side of the Godavari River, were merged into Khammam district on grounds of geographical contiguity and administrative viability. Similarly Aswaraopeta part of West Godavari District was added to Khammam district and Munagala taluk belonging to Krishna district was added to Nalgonda district in the same year.
The number of districts became 23 with the formation of Prakasam district from the parts of Guntur, Nellore and Kurnool districts in 1970 and Vizianagaram district from parts of Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam districts in 1979.
After the bifurcation of the United Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the Andhra region now known as Andhra Pradesh was left with 13 districts but was given several tribal-dominated mandals from the Khammam district of the Telangana as part of the Polavaram project. These mandals were added to the East Godavari and West Godavari district's respectively.
On 26 January 2022, the Government of Andhra Pradesh proposed 13 new districts by issuing a draft notification under the Andhra Pradesh Districts (Formation) Act, 1974, Section 3(5). After taking the objections and suggestions received from the public into consideration, the government has published the final notification on 3 April 2022. With effect from 4 April 2022 the newly formed districts came into effect as specified in the schedule. At present there are 26 districts spread across 3 cultural regions: Uttaraandhra, Kostaandhra and Rayalaseema.
The government formed Markapuram and Polavaram districts with effect from 31 December 2025 after receiving proposals from public.By this the districts count is increased from 26 to 28.
The state is further divided into 28 districts, with North Andhra comprising seven districts, Coastal Andhra comprising twelve districts, and Rayalaseema comprising nine districts. These districts are made up of 81 revenue divisions, 688 mandals and 13,324 village panchayats as part of the administrative organisation.
North Andhra (Uttaraandhra):
Coastal Andhra (Kosta Andhra):
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The Government of Andhra Pradesh has also proposed three new regional development clusters to promote balanced growth across the state. These regions group nearby districts based on geography and economic potential. For instance, the Tirupati region includes all Rayalaseema districts such as Ananthapuramu, Sri Sathya Sai, Kurnool, Nandyal, YSR Kadapa, Annamayya, Chittoor, and Tirupati, along with SPSR Nellore district. Similarly, the Visakhapatnam region covers the North Coastal districts including Alluri Sitharama Raju, Anakapalli, Parvathipuram Manyam, Polavaram, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram,along with Kakinada, East Godavari and West Godavari and The AmaravatiâÂÂVijayawada region includes Bapatla, East Godavari, Eluru, Guntur, Kakinada,Konaseema, Krishna, Markapuram, NTR, Palnadu and Prakasam. These regional clusters are aimed at improving infrastructure, industrial development, and administrative coordination across Andhra Pradesh.