Where in the World is India

Considered the largest democracy in the world, India recently became the largest nation by population, inching out China with India’s staggering population of 1.428 billion people. Ranked seventh in the world by land mass—some 1.269 million square miles—India is bounded by the Great Himalayas to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Arabian Sea to the west, and the Indian Ocean to the south. Lying entirely in the northern hemisphere, the Indian peninsula stretches 1,997 miles from north to south and 1,822 miles from east to west, encompassing a coastline of 4,670 miles in length, and while 65% of the Indian population lives in rural agricultural communities, the nation is also home to 46 cities with populations greater than one million lives.

India’s Weather

Cut off from mainland Asia by the Himalayas, India’s climate is broadly classified as tropical monsoonal, experiencing the four seasons of winter from December to early April, a pre-monsoon summer from April to June, Monsoon or rainy season from June to September and a post-monsoonal season from October to December. The nation is also home to four topographical regions, including the great mountain zone, the Ganga and Indus plains, the desert region and the southern peninsula. Rich in natural resources, including iron ore, copper, oil and gas, diamonds, bauxite and coal, the nation also experiences a wide range of natural disasters, including monsoonal flooding, earthquakes, droughts and landslides. Home to a wide range of ethnicities, including Indian, Mongoloid, Australoid, Black and Caucasian, according to India’s 2001 census, roughly 80% of the nation’s population practices the Hindu faith, while 13.4% of the population practices Islam, followed by Christians, Sikhs, Buddhist, Jains and more.

Multi-Linqual

While Hindi is the official language of India—so deemed by parliament—English continues to be the official government and business language of the nation, which has carried on since her independence on August 15th, 1947, after 89 years of British rule. According to Forbes, a decade ago, India ranked as the ninth largest economy in the world, while more recent data indicates that the nation has climbed to fifth largest globally, with a nominal GDP of $3.4 trillion USD, making the nation of India, a complex and diverse giant of the northern hemisphere.