Telangana, which became India’s 29th state on Monday, is not just the country’s 12th largest both in terms of population and area, but also the first to be carved out on a criteria that is not based on language.

Here follows some facts about the newborn state:

Location: Falls roughly between the two main rivers of the region, Krishna and Godavari

Neighbours: Shares boundaries with Andhra Pradesh to the south and east, Maharashtra to the north and northwest, Karnataka to the west and Chhattisgarh and Odisha to the north-east

Size: India’s 12th largest by population with 35.29 million people, roughly that of Canada — a ranking below Odisha and above Kerala

Area: Again India’s 12th largest with 114,840 sq km and comparable with England — just below Tamil Nadu and well above Bihar

Legislature: Bicameral with 119 seats in Assembly and 40 seats in Council

Assembly Representation: Telangana Rashtra Samithi 63, Congress 21, Telugu Desam 15, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen seven, Bharatiya Janata Party five and others eight

Lok Sabha Representation: 17 seats

First Chief Minister: Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao

First Governor: Ekkadu Srinivasan Lakshminarasimhan

Capital: Hyderabad (It will also be Andhra Pradesh capital for 10 years)

Other main Cities: Warangal, Nizamabad and Karimnagar

Religions: Hindus 86 per cent, Muslims 12.4 per cent, Christians 1.2 per cent

Language: As main spoken language Telugu 76 per cent, Urdu 12 per cent, others 12 per cent

Literacy: Male 75.6 per cent, female 58.77 per cent, overall 67.2 per cent