Former princely state, central India.
It is crossed by the Vindhya Mountains; the Narmada River is its southern boundary. It was founded in 1723 by an Afghan chieftain who had served under the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb . In its struggles with the Marathas, Bhopal was itself friendly to the British and concluded a treaty with them in 1817. It was the chief state of the Bhopal Agency and the second largest Muslim principality of the British Empire. At India's independence, Bhopal remained a separate Indian province. When it was incorporated into Madhya Pradesh in 1956, Bhopal city became the state's capital.