Before Bhopal, the capital of (the then) Madhya Pradesh was Nagpur.

Quick Scoop

  • After independence, the region was organized as “Madhya Pradesh” with Nagpur as its capital , when it was still largely based on the old Central Provinces and Berar setup.
  • Separately, there was “Madhya Bharat”, which had two capitals : Gwalior (winter) and Indore (summer).
  • In 1956, with the major reorganization that merged Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh and Bhopal State into a new, larger Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal was chosen as the capital, replacing Nagpur.

So if you are asking “what was the capital of Madhya Pradesh before Bhopal?” in the post‑1956 sense of the present state, the answer is Nagpur.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.