Central India: Vast region that is casually termed as part of 'North India' is a huge region spread over three states
Region or 'subah' & 'states' are often carved out, recreated or reorganized, but this region that is divided in three provinces or states is a region that has nearly 150 million populace. That's more than the population of Russia.
Indore, Nagpur, Bhopal, greater Raipur that includes Bhilai and Durg, Jabalpur, Gwalior are million plus cities here.
Ujjain and Amravati also exist in this region. The region as we see starts from Chambal region and Gondwana is located here.
The states got fresh names and then again new names. Certain regions' names were changed and just remained in books, as official names become popular.
In old maps, Sironj was an important town in Central India.
In ancient era, Vidisha and Ujjain, the two historic towns were more prominent.
Sanchi is located here. This region also has Khandesh in the vicinity. Burhanpur, the gateway to Deccan, is also located in Nimar region, just below Malwa, in the western part.
Dhar, Mandu and Ellichpur, that were once seats of empires and the princely states like Bhopal, Indore and Gwalior, apart from Deogarh and Nagpur kingdoms, Bastar, are included in this vast region that is now divided among three states.
Actually, the Tribal heartland, districts with huge concentration of the people belonging to scheduled tribes or adiwasi, exist here. From Alirajpur, Dhar and Jhabua in MP's east to Betul, Mandla, Dindori and Shahdol, Chhindwara & districts like Jhabua or Ambikapur, Bastar region in Chhattisgarh & then in the tribal dominated districts of Vidarbha.
After 2011, no census was conducted. But India has a multiple systems of counting and data is available along with mathematical ways and projections. It is estimated that Madhya Pradesh has a population of 90 million [9 crore], Chhattisgarh has a population of 31.5 million [3.15 crore] and Vidarbha has a population of around 25 million [2.5 crore].
Major towns include Indore that has grown fast and its urban area is touching 4 million. Nagpur's urban population is second to it. Bhopal's urban population is also estimated to be around 3 million. The fourth biggest centre is Greater Raipur that includes Naya Raipur and the adjoining cities of Durg and Bhilai.
Together, this also crosses 3 million. Apart from these four cities--Bhopal, Indore, Nagpur and Greater Raipur, there are certain other million plus cities in the region. They include Jabalpur and Gwalior. Once Jabalpur was among the biggest cities in this region but its growth slowed down after independence.
Bhopal became capital and Indore turned into a commercial township. Later, in 2000, Chhattisgarh was carved out and Raipur also grew faster in the next quarter century. Amravati, Akola in Vidarbha, Bilaspur, Korba in Chhattisgarh, Ujjain and Burhanpur in MP, are among other important towns.
CENTRAL INDIA: PAST AND PRESENT
In medieval India, there were 16 subahs. Malwa, Berar and Khandesh were three of these subahs. None of them exist now. The boundaries were changed again and again. Khandesh was split between MP and Maharashtra.
Berar province was included in modern 'CP and Berar' state. But later, in 1956, after the reorganization of states, Nagpur didn't remain capital as Madhya Bharat, Vindhya and Bhopal princely state were combined with other princely states of central India, to form Madhya Pradesh.
Berar is often casually termed as Vidarbha region, though all districts of Berar are not part of Vidarbha and all the parts of Vidarbha don't fall in the Berar region. However, this region is now part of Maharashtra, though geographically, it is in central India and close to Madhya Pradesh.