Provinces and States Across South and East Asia

Balochistan is the largest Pakistani province by land area but the least populated. It borders Iran and Afghanistan and fronts the Arabian Sea, where the deep-sea port of Gwadar sits, so the path begins with a division defined by space and coastline rather than crowds.

The Islamabad Capital Territory is the opposite of Balochistan in scale: about 906.5 square kilometers at the foot of the Margalla Hills, holding over 2.3 million people at the 2023 census. A national capital here is a federal territory rather than a province.

Gilgit-Baltistan, once called the Northern Areas, is the part of the Kashmir region that Pakistan administers. Kashmir has been disputed since 1947, so the atlas records current control without settling any sovereignty claim. It touches Afghanistan's Wakhan District and China's Xinjiang.

Maharashtra occupies a large part of the Deccan Plateau on India's western side. Its capital is Mumbai, Nagpur is the winter capital, and the atlas records an estimated 2025 population of 128,659,000 across 307,713 square kilometers.

Andhra Pradesh lies on India's southeastern coast along the Bay of Bengal. It is the seventh largest Indian state by area, with Amaravati as capital and Visakhapatnam as its largest city. Telugu, one of India's classical languages, is its official language.

Kerala was formed in 1956 when Malayalam-speaking regions were unified under the States Reorganisation Act. A narrow coastal strip between the Western Ghats and the Laccadive Sea, it has Thiruvananthapuram as capital and Malayalam as an official language alongside English.

Bihar is India's second most populous state, with a recorded population of 130,725,310, yet only twelfth in area at 98,940 square kilometers. The Ganges crosses it from west to east, and Hindi and Urdu are official, with Maithili, Magahi and Bhojpuri widely spoken.

Xinjiang is the largest province-level division of China, spanning more than 1.6 million square kilometers with about 25 million people. It borders eight countries, and the historic Silk Road ran through it. The Aksai Chin area on its southwestern border is administered by China but claimed by India.

The Tibet Autonomous Region occupies most of the Tibetan Plateau, the highest region on Earth, with Lhasa as capital. China has administered it since the 1950s, while a Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala disputes that rule; the atlas records the dispute without settling it.

Hebei is a North China province of more than 75 million people with Shijiazhuang as capital and largest city. It entirely surrounds the direct-administered municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin on land, a reminder that province-level boundaries can wrap around other divisions.

Aceh is the westernmost province of Indonesia, on the northern tip of Sumatra, with Banda Aceh as capital and largest city. It holds special autonomous status and is the only Indonesian province to officially apply Islamic law.

The path ends on an island province. Bali is the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with Denpasar as its capital, and tourism-related business makes up around eighty percent of its economy.