Puducherry, also called Pondicherry, is a Union Territory in India made up of four small, geographically separate and unconnected districts. It was created from four of the five territories that once formed French India:
- Pondichéry (now Puducherry)
- Karikal (Karaikal)
- Mahé
- Yanaon (now Yanam).
The areas of Puducherry district and Karaikal district are bound by the state of Tamil Nadu, while Yanam district and Mahé district are enclosed by the states of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, respectively.
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| The English spelling is Mahe but in Hindi & Malayalam it is Mayyazhi, the way it is pronounced |
It is named after the largest district, Puducherry, which was also the capital of French India.
The territories of French India were completely transferred to the Republic of India de facto on 1 November 1954, and de jure on 16 August 1962, when French India ceased to exist, becoming the present Indian union territory of Pondicherry, combining four coastal enclaves. The fifth, Chandannagar, merged with the state of West Bengal in 1954.
Some of Puducherry's regions are themselves amalgamations of non-contiguous enclaves, often called "pockets" in India. The Puducherry region is made of 11 such pockets, some of which are very small and entirely surrounded by the territory of Tamil Nadu. Mahé region is made up of three pockets. This unusual geography is a legacy of the colonial period with Puducherry retaining the borders of former French India.
The official languages of Puducherry are French, Tamil, Telugu (in Yanam), Malayalam (in Mahe) and English.
Puducherry was the setting for Yann Martel's first third of his Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi (2001).