Provinces of India

Provinces of India, earlier Presidencies of British India, still earlier, Presidency towns, and collectively British India, were the administrative units of the territories of India under the tenancy (Company Rule) or the sovereignty (Raj) of either the East India Company or the British Crown between 1612 and 1947.

British India is divided into three periods. From the early 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, the East India Company traded in Bengal on the sufferance of the native powers. Its rivals were the merchant trading companies of Holland and France. In the next hundred years, referred to as Company rule in India, the Company acquired paramountcy, but increasingly shared its sovereignty with the Crown, gradually losing its mercantile privileges. Following the 1857 Rebellion, the Company's remaining powers were transferred to the Crown initiating the direct rule by the British Empire (1858–1947). The term "British India" has also been used secondarily as a shortened form for "the British people in the British Empire in India."