The Republic of India is located on a peninsula in south Asia that juts out into the Indian Ocean. This peninsula, which is also known as the Indian Subcontinent, lies between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea and also includes Bangladesh and Pakistan.
India has an area of 1,183,364 square miles (3,064,898 square kilometers).
With a population of 1,198,003,000, India has the second largest population of any country in the world and is the largest democracy on Earth. The only country with a larger population is China.
The capital of India is New Delhi.
Mumbai is the largest city.
Mumbai and New Delhi, are, respectively, the sixth and seventh most highly populated urban areas in the world, after Tokyo, Mexico City, Seoul, New York and São Paulo.
India has a parliamentary system of government.
It was once a part of the British Empire and is now a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The official currency of India is the Indian rupee, which equals 100 paise.
The Himalaya, the Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountains - all part of the Great Himalayas - form India's northern border.
The Himalayas were formed about 65 million years ago, when Asia and the Indian subcontinent collided. They form the highest and most extensive mountain range on Earth.
Located in the Inner Himalayas, traversing the Kashmir regions of India and Pakistan, are the Pir Panjal mountains. These mountains are up to 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) high. Despite the freezing weather, people live and engage in cultivation above the tree line.
Most of the people of India live on a broad plain in the north, which is drained by the The Ganges, Indus and Brahmaputra rivers.
The Ganges Rivers is sacred in Hinduism.
The rivers of the Punjab region, which runs across Pakistan and India, flow into the Ganges.
For tens of millions of years, as the Himalayas have risen, the course of the Brahmaputra River has been diverted to the east by hundreds of miles.
The largest lake in India is Sambhar Salt lake, located India's Rajasthan region in the northwest. Sambhar Salt Lake is an ephemeral salt lake. It fills during flash floods.
Around Bharatpur in northern India, there is a swampy depression that is now a bird sanctuary. The swamps in this region were formed by rivers flowing down from the Himalayas.
Bays with crescent-shaped beaches and rocky promontories characterize the Konkan coast, located between Goa and Daman. Here rias, flooded river valleys, extend inland from the coast.
Northeastern India's Khasi Hills are a geological feature known as a horst - a raised block of fractured bedrock.
Most of southern India consists of the the Deccan Plateau, which is more than 12,353 square miles (320,000 square kilometers) in area,. The Deccan Plateau is composed of deep layers of volcanic basalt. Near the coast, the basalt is 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) thick.
The northern border of the Deccan plateau contains young sedimentary strata mixed in with old basement rocks. This has created scarplands - regions of parallel sloped ridges - with many waterfalls flowing along the softer sedimentary layers.
The Deccan Plateau is bordered by hills on both sides - the Western Ghats to the west and the Eastern Ghats to the east.
The Western Ghats, which run along the coast of the Arabian Sea, were created by a fault scarp - a geological feature that forms when land moves on one side of a fault but not on the other side. The Western Ghats run for more than 930 miles (1500 kilometers.) T highest region in the Western Ghats are the Cardamom hills.
While the Western Ghats run uninterrupted along the coast, the Eastern Ghats are broken up by rivers that flow across wide lowlands into the Bay of Bengal.
Both the Western and Eastern Ghats drop down to narrow coastal plains.
The Thar Desert runs through western Indian and eastern Pakistan
This desert contains dunes that are up to 100 feet (30 meters) Vegetation has stabilized these dunes, which have remained in their current position for about 3,000 years, as shown by fossils that have been found in the region.
The Rann of Kachchh in the Thar Desert is a region of tidal marshes that surround the India's Kachchh Peninsula. During the monsoon season, the water level of the marshes becomes so high that the Kachchh Peninsula is cut off from the mainland and becomes an island.
India has a cold season from November to February, a hot season from March to June and a monsoon season from June to October.
Temperature and precipitation vary greatly. Much of southern India has a tropical climate, while it is very cold in the Himalayas.
There is hardly any rainfall in the Thar desert, while levels of rainfall are high in northeastern India.
72% of the people of India are Indo-Aryan and 25% are Dravidian.
Hindi and English are official languages. Other languages spoken include Tamil, Urdu, Bengali, Telugu, Marath, Kanarese, Bihari and Gujarati.
Tamil is spoken throughout southern India.
81% of the population is Hindu, 13% are Muslim, 2% are Christian, 2% are Sikh and 1% are Buddhist.
India has a large manufacturing sector. Important industries are chemical and chemical products, pharmaceuticals, software, electrical goods, iron and steel, transport equipment textiles and food products.
It is a major world producer of tobacco, tea, sugar, cotton and jute.
India has reserves of oil, natural gas, coal, diamonds, gold, iron bauxite and manganese.
Mumbai is an important international center of finance, commerce and entertainment.
Two thirds of the workforce are involved in farming, fishing or forestry, and these activities make up one fourth of the national output.
Most farming is done on a subsistence basis.
The main crops are rice and wheat.
Livestock is reared for hides and for dairy products.
The region of Jammu and Kashmir is disputed by India, Pakistan and China.
India and Pakistan have been disputing the rights to the water resources of the Punjab.
Sikhs in Indian's Punjab region have been seeking greater autonomy, or independence.
In 1984, there were violent clashes between Indian forces and Sikh separatists in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, in Punjab. The Golden Temple is the Sikh's most sacred shine.
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