India Country Info - Asia

Description and Basic Information

India with its capital New Delhi is located in Asia (Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal). It covers some 3,287,591 square kilometres (slightly more than one-third the size of the US) with 1,147,995,000 citizens. English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Panjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Sanskrit and Urdu are the languages commonly used by the people in India (consider regional differences). China, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are bordering countries.

India is the largest country in the Indian subcontinent. Befitting its size and population, India's culture and heritage are a rich amalgam of the past and the present. India has a very rich and diverse mix of culture and tradition, dominated by religious and spiritual themes. India has 22 official languages and drinking alcohol can either be frowned upon or openly accepted, depending on the region and religion of the area within which you are drinking. There is no single unified Indian culture, and it's probably the only country where people of so many different origins, religious beliefs, languages and ethnic backgrounds coexist. India is big and has many outstanding landmarks and areas of outstanding beauty. If you really want to see all the worth visiting places in India, one tourist visa of six months can be argued to be considered enough. Allow considerable buffer time for any journey with a fixed deadline (eg. your flight back). Cannabis in its many forms is widely available throughout India, but they are all illegal in the vast majority of the country, and may mean years in jail! As a rule India is quite safe for foreigners, apart from instances of petty crime and theft common to any developing country.

Pictures from Capital (New Delhi)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About India

The landscape features upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, Himalayas in north. The average density of population is about 349 per km². The climate in India can be described as varying from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north. Potential threats by nature are droughts or flash floods, as well as widespread and destructive flooding from monsoonal rains, severe thunderstorms or earthquakes.

To reach someone in India dial +91 prior to a number. There are 35,770,000 installed telephones. And there are 670,000,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".in". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 230V - 50Hz. The following list are the 35 regions/states in India we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Indian population grew at a rate of 1.38% (or by 16,141,966 citizens). With 8,833,503 deaths and 25,034,125 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 1.38%. -58,655 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in India: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.