India is a country located in southern Asia, bordered by the Himalaya to the north, surrounded by the countries of Pakistan to the northwest, Tibet (annexed by China), Nepal and Bhutan to the north, Myanmar to the east, with Bangladesh nestled within it on its eastern side. It is bordered to the south by the Indian Ocean, and covers 3,287,263 sq km/1,269,219 sq mi, a little more than three times the size of the United States. It is the world’s second most populous country, behind China, with 1.409 billion people.
Political map of India.
India is one of the world’s great cultural centers, with several thousand years of continuous heritage and having generated two of the planet’s major belief systems, Hinduism and Buddhism. The earliest traces of Homo sapiens in India date to 30,000 years ago, and the earliest traces of agriculture and domestication of animals to 6,500 years ago. Between 2000-500 BCE, as India transitioned into the Iron Age, the Vedas—collections of Hindu hymns—were composed. Near the end of this period, between 500-300 BCE, Gautama Buddha appeared and spent his adult life teaching his doctrine of spiritual awareness, which would later spread through India and the world.
Physical map of India.
India, isolated from potential major enemies to east and north by the immense mountain chains including the Himalaya, during its early history was never fully conquered from without, though the northern zone closer to the mountains occasionally was. Warring regional kingdoms were the norm, but in the 16th century CE the Mughals from the west succeeded in gaining control of much of the country. Within two centuries they were gone, to be replaced by European colonists. Through the late 1700’s and early 1800’s the British gained influence through trade and their navy, and absorbed coastal India into their global empire. Mounting resistance found a hero in Mahatma Gandhi, who pioneered the concept of peaceful resistance and won India’s independence from Britain with it. Since 1950 India has remained a democracy.
Ganges River near the mountains.
The geography of India is dominated by the Himalaya to the north, the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers which emerge from them, and the Deccan Plateau in the south central region. At an average altitude of 600 m/2000 ft and shielded from the monsoon by the WesternGhats mountain range, the Deccan is arid and classified as savanna. India stretches from 8º to 37º N latitude, so roughly half of it is tropical, and it is not until close to the mountains that the climate drops from subtropical to temperate and cool. India’s climate is dominated by the semiannual monsoon, where the warm, rainy season from May through September features moist offshore winds from the Indian Ocean bringing large amounts of rain and stormy weather, and the October through April cooler, drier season where cooler, drier onshore winds from the mountains are flushed out to sea. Even the Deccan, though it avoids the torrential monsoons, experiences wet and dry seasons, though less intensely.
The Deccan Traps--more massive basalt deposits!
Hogenakkai Falls.
Tomorrow: India’s economic development.
Be brave,
and be well.
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