The most important states are Hyderabad, Mysore, Baroda, Kashmir and Jammu, the Rajputana Agency, and the Central India Agency. The first four of these are single units, each under its separate ruler; but Rajputana and Central India are political groups consisting of many states, enjoying different degrees of autonomy. Rajputana is the name of a great territorial circle, containing twenty states in all; while under the Central India Agency there are grouped 148 states and petty chiefs.
Amongst the minor states, subordinate to the various provincial governments, five are controlled by Madras; 354 by Bombay, many of them being quite petty; 26 by Bengal, of which Kuch Behar is the chief; 34 by the Punjab, amongst which the Phulkian Sikh states and Bhawalpur are the most important; 2 under Eastern Bengal and Assam; 15 under the Central Provinces; and 2 under the United Provinces. Burma contains a number of Shan states, which technically form part of British India, but are administered through their hereditary chiefs. All the most important of these native states are separately described.
In addition to the internal states, which have a fixed status, there are several frontier tracts of India, whose status is fluctuating or not strictly defined. In Baluchistan there are the native states of Kalat and Las Bela, and also tribal areas belonging to the Marri and Bugti tribes. On the north-west frontier, in addition to the chief ships of Chitral and Dir, there are a number of independent tribes which reside within the political frontier of British India, but over which effective control has never been exercised. The territory belonging to these tribes, of whom the chief are the Waziris, Afridis, Orakzais, Mohmands, Swatis and Bajouris, is attached to, but is not strictly within, the North-West Frontier Province. Kashmir possesses as feudatories Gilgit and a number of petty states, of which the most important are Hunza-Nagar and Chilas, but effective control over these outlying states has only been asserted in comparatively recent years for political reasons. Nepal and Bhutan, though independent, are under various commercial and other agreements with the government of India. On the north-east frontier, as on the north-west, semi-independent tribes extend across the frontier into independent country. Similarly Karenni, on the Burmese border, is not included in British territory, but the superintendent of the Shan states exercises some judicial and other powers over it.