The Partition of India was the partition of the British Indian Empire[367] that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan (which later split into Pakistan and Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later the Republic of India) on 15 August 1947. During the Partition, one of British India's greatest provinces, the Punjab Province, was split along communal lines into West Punjab and East Punjab (later split into the three separate modern-day Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh). West Punjab was formed out of the Muslim majority districts of the former British Indian Punjab Province while East Punjab was formed out of the Hindu and Sikh majority districts of the former province.