Where are India's engineering colleges actually located?

How to read this. NIRF publishes exact ranks only to #100; below that it uses bands (101–150, 151–200, 201–300). Each bar is proportional to the college's branch count in each family — a focused private college is mostly navy (computer), while an old IIT or NIT runs across all four because it carries deep mechanical, civil and process departments. Rank reflects research, placements and perception — a different axis from admission demand. Switch to Waffle cards for a small-multiple texture view. Source: NIRF Engineering 2026 (MoE).

Sources. AICTE Approval Process Handbook 2023-24; MoE IoE official list; UGC Deemed Universities list; NIRF 2026 Engineering category; NAAC database (naac.gov.in); TNEA Anna University 2024 participating institutions; state DTE counselling lists. Private counts rounded to nearest 5–10.

What's counted as "engineering". Only institutions offering AICTE-approved B.E./B.Tech programmes. Polytechnics, pure science institutes and B.Sc-only institutions excluded.

TNEA filter. TNEA is a counselling process (not a national category) so the filter highlights only Tamil Nadu. The 571 includes government, aided and self-financing colleges. Tamil Nadu's private colleges are also counted under "Private" — there's deliberate overlap, since most TNEA colleges are private.

Overlap caution. IIT Madras counts under IITs, IoE, NIRF and NAAC. BITS Pilani counts under Deemed, IoE, NIRF and NAAC. Totals across filters will not sum cleanly — by design, since each filter answers a different question.

District drill-down. District figures available for top 12 states (TN, MH, KA, TG, AP, UP, KL, DL, GJ, WB, MP, RJ). Other states show summary only.