The Province was constituted as a separate administrative unit in 1861 from territories taken from the Peshwa in 1818 and the Maratha State of Nagpur, which had lapsed from failure of heirs in 1853.

Berar, which for a considerable previous period had been held on a lease or assignment from the Nizam of Hyderabad, was incorporated for administrative purposes with the Central Provinces in 1903.

In 1905 the bulk of the District of Sambalpur, with five Feudatory States inhabited by an Uriya-speaking population, were transferred to Bengal and afterwards to the new Province of Bihar and Orissa, while five Feudatory States of Chota Nagpur were received from Bengal.

The former territory had been for some years included in the scope of the Ethnographic Survey, and is shown coloured in the annexed map of linguistic and racial divisions.
The main portion of the Province may be divided, from north-west to south-east, into three tracts of upland, alternating with two of plain country.

In the north-west the Districts of Sangor and Damoh lie on the Vindhyan or Malwa plateau, the southern face of which rises almost sheer from the valley of the Nerbudda.