Banaras State, earlier Benares Estate, was an estate, or hereditary jagir, comprising the family domains of the Maharaja of Benares under the Nawabs of Oudh, East India Company rule, and the British Raj that from 1911 to 1948 was recognized as a princely state.
The estate was founded by the zamindar, Balwant Singh, who assumed the title of "Raja of Benares" in the mid 18th century, taking advantage of the Mughal Empire's disintegration. His descendants had zamindari privileges in an area around Benares city, but not in the city, which the East India Company had annexed under the Treaty of Faizabad in the later 1760s. Benares became a princely state of British Raj in 1911. On October 15, 1949, the State of Benares was merged with Uttar Pradesh.