Bombay State is an earlier state of India. When India was under British rule, sections of the western coast of India were part of the Bombay Presidency. In 1937, the Bombay Presidency was included as a province of British India. After India got her independence in 1947, many former princely states, including the Gujarat states and the Deccan states, were combined with the previous Bombay province.

This entire portion was cumulatively renamed Bombay State. This state was considerably extended on November 1, 1956, growing eastward to include the Marathi speaking Marathwada region of Hyderabad State, the Marathi speaking Vidarbha area of southern Madhya Pradesh, and the Gujarati speaking region of Saurashtra and Kutch. The southernmost Kannada speaking segment of the state became a division of the new linguistic state of Karnataka.

The local inhabitants popularly knew the state as Maha Dwibhashi Rajya, which literally means the great bilingual state. Both the Marathi and the Gujarati linguistic movements initiated in this state, both seeking to create separate linguistic states. Shri Indubhai Yagnik guided the Mahagujarat movement in Gujarat. On May 1, 1960, after a movement for a separate Marathi state turned vicious, the Bombay State was divided into the States of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The history of Bombay State records the names of three chief ministers. Balasaheb Kher was the first Chief Minister of the state after India attained independence. Morarji Desai and Yashwantrao Chavan succeeded him.