India, officially the Republic of India,[j][20] is a country in South Asia.

It is
the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country as of June 2023;[21]
[22] and since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy.[23]
[24][25] Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the
southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with
Pakistan to the west;[k] China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and
Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives;
its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and
Indonesia.
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Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000
years ago.[27][28][29] Their long occupation, predominantly in isolation as hunter-
gatherers, has made the region highly diverse, second only to Africa in human
genetic diversity.[30] Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western
margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus
Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE.[31] By 1200 BCE, an archaic form
of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest.
[32][33] Its hymns recorded the dawning of Hinduism in India.[34] India's pre-
existing Dravidian languages were supplanted in the northern regions.[35] By 400
BCE, caste had emerged within Hinduism,[36] and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen,
proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.[37] Early political consolidations
gave rise to the loose-knit Maurya and Gupta Empires.[38] Widespread creativity
suffused this era,[39] but the status of women declined,[40] and untouchability
became an organized belief.[l][41] In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported
Dravidian language scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast
Asia.[42]

In the early mediaeval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became
established on India's southern and western coasts.[43] Muslim armies from Central
Asia intermittently overran India's northern plains.[44] The resulting Delhi
Sultanate drew northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of mediaeval Islam.
[45] In south India, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu
culture.[46] In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion.
[47] The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace,[48]
leaving a legacy of luminous architecture.[m][49] Gradually expanding rule of the
British East India Company followed. It turned India into a colonial economy but
consolidated its sovereignty.[50] British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights
promised to Indians were granted slowly,[51][52] but technological changes were
introduced, and modern ideas of education and public life took root.[53] A
pioneering and influential nationalist movement emerged. Noted for nonviolent
resistance it became the major factor in ending British rule.[54][55] In 1947, the
British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions,[56][57][58]
[59] a Hindu-majority dominion of India and a Muslim-majority dominion of Pakistan.
A large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration accompanied the
partition.[60]

India has been a federal republic since 1950, governed through a democratic
parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society.
India's population grew from 361 million in 1951 to almost 1.4 billion in 2022.[61]
During this time, its nominal per capita income increased from US$64 annually to
US$2,601, and its literacy rate from 16.6% to 74%. A comparatively destitute
country in 1951,[62] India has become a fast-growing major economy and a hub for
information technology services; it has an expanding middle class.[63] Indian
movies and music increasingly influence global culture.[64] India has reduced its
poverty rate, though at the cost of increasing economic inequality.[65] It is a
nuclear-weapon state that ranks high in military expenditure. It has disputes over
Kashmir with its neighbours, Pakistan and China, unresolved since the mid-20th
century.[66] Among the socio-economic challenges India faces are gender inequality,
child malnutrition,[67] and rising levels of air pollution.[68] India's land is
megadiverse with four biodiversity hotspots.[69] India's wildlife, which has
traditionally been viewed with tolerance in its culture,[70] is supported among
these forests and elsewhere in protected habitats.

Etymology
Main article: Names for India
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (third edition 2009), the name "India"
is derived from the Classical Latin India, a reference to South Asia and an
uncertain region to its east. In turn the name "India" derived successively from
Hellenistic Greek India ( Ἰνδία), ancient Greek Indos ( Ἰνδός), Old Persian Hindush
(an eastern province of the Achaemenid Empire), and ultimately its cognate, the
Sanskrit Sindhu, or "river", specifically the Indus River and, by implication, its
well-settled southern basin.[71][72] The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as
Indoi (Ἰνδοί), which translates as "The people of the Indus".[73]

The term Bharat (Bhārat; pronounced [ˈbʱaːɾət] ⓘ), mentioned in both Indian epic
poetry and the Constitution of India,[74][75] is used in its variations by many
Indian languages. A modern rendering of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which
applied originally to North India,[76][77] Bharat gained increased currency from
the mid-19th century as a native name for India.[74][78]

Hindustan ([ɦɪndʊˈstaːn] ⓘ) is a Middle Persian name for India that became popular
by the 13th century,[79] and was used widely since the era of the Mughal Empire.
The meaning of Hindustan has varied, referring to a region encompassing the
northern Indian subcontinent (present-day northern India and Pakistan) or to India
in its near entirety.[74][78][80]

History
Main articles: History of India and History of the Republic of India
Ancient India

Manuscript illustration, c. 1650, of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, composed in story-

telling fashion c. 400 BCE – c. 300 CE[81]
By 55,000 years ago, the first modern humans, or Homo sapiens, had arrived on the
Indian subcontinent from Africa, where they had earlier evolved.[27][28][29] The
earliest known modern human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago.
[27] After 6500 BCE, evidence for domestication of food crops and animals,
construction of permanent structures, and storage of agricultural surplus appeared
in Mehrgarh and other sites in Balochistan, Pakistan.[82] These gradually developed
into the Indus Valley Civilisation,[83][82] the first urban culture in South Asia,
[84] which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in Pakistan and western India.[85]
Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, and Kalibangan, and
relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilisation engaged robustly in crafts
production and wide-ranging trade.[84]

During the period 2000–500 BCE, many regions of the subcontinent transitioned from
the Chalcolithic cultures to the Iron Age ones.[86] The Vedas, the oldest
scriptures associated with Hinduism,[87] were composed during this period,[88] and
historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and
the upper Gangetic Plain.[86] Most historians also consider this period to have
encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the
north-west.[87] The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors,
and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labelling their
occupations impure, arose during this period.[89] On the Deccan Plateau,
archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage
of political organisation.[86] In South India, a progression to sedentary life is
indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this period,[90]
as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, and craft traditions.
[90]

Cave 26 of the rock-cut Ajanta Caves

In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and
chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into
16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas.[91][92]
The emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which
became independent religions. Jainism came into prominence during the life of its
exemplar, Mahavira.[93] Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha,
attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class; chronicling
the life of the Buddha was central to the beginnings of recorded history in India.
[94][95][96] In an age of increasing urban wealth, both religions held up
renunciation as an ideal,[97] and both established long-lasting monastic
traditions. Politically, by the 3rd century BCE, the kingdom of Magadha had annexed
or reduced other states to emerge as the Maurya Empire.[98] The empire was once
thought to have controlled most of the subcontinent except the far south, but its
core regions are now thought to have been separated by large autonomous areas.[99]
[100] The Mauryan kings are known as much for their empire-building and determined
management of public life as for Ashoka's renunciation of militarism and far-flung
advocacy of the Buddhist dhamma.[101][102]

The Sangam literature of the Tamil language reveals that, between 200 BCE and 200
CE, the southern peninsula was ruled by the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas,
dynasties that traded extensively with the Roman Empire and with West and Southeast
Asia.[103][104] In North India, Hinduism asserted patriarchal control within the
family, leading to increased subordination of women.[105][98] By the 4th and 5th
centuries, the Gupta Empire had created a complex system of administration and
taxation in the greater Ganges Plain; this system became a model for later Indian
kingdoms.[106][107] Under the Guptas, a renewed Hinduism based on devotion, rather
than the management of ritual, began to assert itself.[108] This renewal was
reflected in a flowering of sculpture and architecture, which found patrons among
an urban elite.[107] Classical Sanskrit literature flowered as well, and Indian
science, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics made significant advances.[107]

Medieval India
Main article: Medieval India

Brihadeshwara temple, Thanjavur, completed in 1010 CE

The Qutub Minar, 73 m (240 ft) tall, completed by the Sultan of Delhi, Iltutmish
The Indian early medieval age, from 600 to 1200 CE, is defined by regional kingdoms
and cultural diversity.[109] When Harsha of Kannauj, who ruled much of the Indo-
Gangetic Plain from 606 to 647 CE, attempted to expand southwards, he was defeated
by the Chalukya ruler of the Deccan.[110] When his successor attempted to expand
eastwards, he was defeated by the Pala king of Bengal.[110] When the Chalukyas
attempted to expand southwards, they were defeated by the Pallavas from farther
south, who in turn were opposed by the Pandyas and the Cholas from still farther
south.[110] No ruler of this period was able to create an empire and consistently
control lands much beyond their core region.[109] During this time, pastoral
peoples, whose land had been cleared to make way for the growing agricultural
economy, were accommodated within caste society, as were new non-traditional ruling
classes.[111] The caste system consequently began to show regional differences.
[111]

In the 6th and 7th centuries, the first devotional hymns were created in the Tamil
language.[112] They were imitated all over India and led to both the resurgence of
Hinduism and the development of all modern languages of the subcontinent.[112]
Indian royalty, big and small, and the temples they patronised drew citizens in
great numbers to the capital cities, which became economic hubs as well.[113]
Temple towns of various sizes began to appear everywhere as India underwent another
urbanisation.[113] By the 8th and 9th centuries, the effects were felt in Southeast
Asia, as South Indian culture and political systems were exported to lands that
became part of modern-day Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.[114] Indian merchants, scholars, and
sometimes armies were involved in this transmission; Southeast Asians took the
initiative as well, with many sojourning in Indian seminaries and translating
Buddhist and Hindu texts into their languages.[114]

After the 10th century, Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, using swift-horse
cavalry and raising vast armies united by ethnicity and religion, repeatedly
overran South Asia's north-western plains, leading eventually to the establishment
of the Islamic Delhi Sultanate in 1206.[115] The sultanate was to control much of
North India and to make many forays into South India. Although at first disruptive
for the Indian elites, the sultanate largely left its vast non-Muslim subject
population to its own laws and customs.[116][117] By repeatedly repulsing Mongol
raiders in the 13th century, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited
on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing
soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region
into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the
north.[118][119] The sultanate's raiding and weakening of the regional kingdoms of
South India paved the way for the indigenous Vijayanagara Empire.[120] Embracing a
strong Shaivite tradition and building upon the military technology of the
sultanate, the empire came to control much of peninsular India,[121] and was to
influence South Indian society for long afterwards.[120]

Early modern India

In the early 16th century, northern India, then under mainly Muslim rulers,[122]
fell again to the superior mobility and firepower of a new generation of Central
Asian warriors.[123] The resulting Mughal Empire did not stamp out the local
societies it came to rule. Instead, it balanced and pacified them through new
administrative practices[124][125] and diverse and inclusive ruling elites,[126]
leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule.[127] Eschewing tribal
bonds and Islamic identity, especially under Akbar, the Mughals united their far-
flung realms through loyalty, expressed through a Persianised culture, to an
emperor who had near-divine status.[126] The Mughal state's economic policies,
deriving most revenues from agriculture[128] and mandating that taxes be paid in
the well-regulated silver currency,[129] caused peasants and artisans to enter
larger markets.[127] The relative peace maintained by the empire during much of the
17th century was a factor in India's economic expansion,[127] resulting in greater
patronage of painting, literary forms, textiles, and architecture.[130] Newly
coherent social groups in northern and western India, such as the Marathas, the
Rajputs, and the Sikhs, gained military and governing ambitions during Mughal rule,
which, through collaboration or adversity, gave them both recognition and military
experience.[131] Expanding commerce during Mughal rule gave rise to new Indian
commercial and political elites along the coasts of southern and eastern India.
[131] As the empire disintegrated, many among these elites were able to seek and
control their own affairs.[132]

A distant view of the Taj Mahal from the Agra Fort

A two mohur Company gold coin, issued in 1835, the obverse inscribed "William IIII,
King"
By the early 18th century, with the lines between commercial and political
dominance being increasingly blurred, a number of European trading companies,
including the English East India Company, had established coastal outposts.[133]
[134] The East India Company's control of the seas, greater resources, and more
advanced military training and technology led it to increasingly assert its
military strength and caused it to become attractive to a portion of the Indian
elite; these factors were crucial in allowing the company to gain control over the
Bengal region by 1765 and sideline the other European companies.[135][133][136]
[137] Its further access to the riches of Bengal and the subsequent increased
strength and size of its army enabled it to annex or subdue most of India by the
1820s.[138] India was then no longer exporting manufactured goods as it long had,
but was instead supplying the British Empire with raw materials. Many historians
consider this to be the onset of India's colonial period.[133] By this time, with
its economic power severely curtailed by the British parliament and having
effectively been made an arm of British administration, the East India Company
began more consciously to enter non-economic arenas, including education, social
reform, and culture.[139]

Modern India
Main article: History of India (1947–present)
Historians consider India's modern age to have begun sometime between 1848 and
1885. The appointment in 1848 of Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of the East
India Company set the stage for changes essential to a modern state. These included
the consolidation and demarcation of sovereignty, the surveillance of the
population, and the education of citizens. Technological changes—among them,
railways, canals, and the telegraph—were introduced not long after their
introduction in Europe.[140][141][142][143] However, disaffection with the company
also grew during this time and set off the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Fed by diverse
resentments and perceptions, including invasive British-style social reforms, harsh
land taxes, and summary treatment of some rich landowners and princes, the
rebellion rocked many regions of northern and central India and shook the
foundations of Company rule.[144][145] Although the rebellion was suppressed by
1858, it led to the dissolution of the East India Company and the direct
administration of India by the British government. Proclaiming a unitary state and
a gradual but limited British-style parliamentary system, the new rulers also
protected princes and landed gentry as a feudal safeguard against future unrest.
[146][147] In the decades following, public life gradually emerged all over India,
leading eventually to the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885.[148]
[149][150][151]

The rush of technology and the commercialisation of agriculture in the second half
of the 19th century was marked by economic setbacks, and many small farmers became
dependent on the whims of far-away markets.[152] There was an increase in the
number of large-scale famines,[153] and, despite the risks of infrastructure
development borne by Indian taxpayers, little industrial employment was generated
for Indians.[154] There were also salutary effects: commercial cropping, especially
in the newly canalled Punjab, led to increased food production for internal
consumption.[155] The railway network provided critical famine relief,[156] notably
reduced the cost of moving goods,[156] and helped nascent Indian-owned industry.
[155]

1909 map of the British Indian Empire

Jawaharlal Nehru sharing a light moment with Mahatma Gandhi, Mumbai, 6 July 1946
After World War I, in which approximately one million Indians served,[157] a new
period began. It was marked by British reforms but also repressive legislation, by
more strident Indian calls for self-rule, and by the beginnings of a nonviolent
movement of non-co-operation, of which Mahatma Gandhi would become the leader and
enduring symbol.[158] During the 1930s, slow legislative reform was enacted by the
British; the Indian National Congress won victories in the resulting elections.
[159] The next decade was beset with crises: Indian participation in World War II,
the Congress's final push for non-co-operation, and an upsurge of Muslim
nationalism. All were capped by the advent of independence in 1947, but tempered by
the partition of India into two states: India and Pakistan.[160]

Vital to India's self-image as an independent nation was its constitution,

completed in 1950, which put in place a secular and democratic republic.[161] Per
the London Declaration, India retained its membership of the Commonwealth, becoming
the first republic within it.[162] Economic liberalisation, which began in the
1980s and the collaboration with Soviet Union for technical know-how,[163] has
created a large urban middle class, transformed India into one of the world's
fastest-growing economies,[164] and increased its geopolitical clout. Yet, India is
also shaped by seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban;[165] by
religious and caste-related violence;[166] by Maoist-inspired Naxalite
insurgencies;[167] and by separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and in Northeast India.
[168] It has unresolved territorial disputes with China[169] and with Pakistan.
[169] India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newer
nations; however, in spite of its recent economic successes, freedom from want for
its disadvantaged population remains a goal yet to be achieved.[170]

Geography
Main article: Geography of India
India accounts for the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, lying atop the Indian
tectonic plate, a part of the Indo-Australian Plate.[171] India's defining
geological processes began 75 million years ago when the Indian Plate, then part of
the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by
seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east.[171]
Simultaneously, the vast Tethyan oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct
under the Eurasian Plate.[171] These dual processes, driven by convection in the
Earth's mantle, both created the Indian Ocean and caused the Indian continental
crust eventually to under-thrust Eurasia and to uplift the Himalayas.[171]
Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast
crescent-shaped trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment[172] and now
constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain.[173] The original Indian plate makes its first
appearance above the sediment in the ancient Aravalli range, which extends from the
Delhi Ridge in a southwesterly direction. To the west lies the Thar Desert, the
eastern spread of which is checked by the Aravallis.[174][175][176]

The Tungabhadra, with rocky outcrops, flows into the peninsular Krishna River.[177]

Fishing boats lashed together in a tidal creek in Anjarle village, Maharashtra

The remaining Indian Plate survives as peninsular India, the oldest and
geologically most stable part of India. It extends as far north as the Satpura and
Vindhya ranges in central India. These parallel chains run from the Arabian Sea
coast in Gujarat in the west to the coal-rich Chota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand in
the east.[178] To the south, the remaining peninsular landmass, the Deccan Plateau,
is flanked on the west and east by coastal ranges known as the Western and Eastern
Ghats;[179] the plateau contains the country's oldest rock formations, some over
one billion years old. Constituted in such fashion, India lies to the north of the
equator between 6° 44′ and 35° 30′ north latitude[n] and 68° 7′ and 97° 25′ east
longitude.[180]

India's coastline measures 7,517 kilometres (4,700 mi) in length; of this distance,
5,423 kilometres (3,400 mi) belong to peninsular India and 2,094 kilometres (1,300
mi) to the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep island chains.[181] According to the
Indian naval hydrographic charts, the mainland coastline consists of the following:
43% sandy beaches; 11% rocky shores, including cliffs; and 46% mudflats or marshy
shores.[181]

Major Himalayan-origin rivers that substantially flow through India include the
Ganges and the Brahmaputra, both of which drain into the Bay of Bengal.[182]
Important tributaries of the Ganges include the Yamuna and the Kosi; the latter's
extremely low gradient, caused by long-term silt deposition, leads to severe floods
and course changes.[183][184] Major peninsular rivers, whose steeper gradients
prevent their waters from flooding, include the Godavari, the Mahanadi, the Kaveri,
and the Krishna, which also drain into the Bay of Bengal;[185] and the Narmada and
the Tapti, which drain into the Arabian Sea.[186] Coastal features include the
marshy Rann of Kutch of western India and the alluvial Sundarbans delta of eastern
India; the latter is shared with Bangladesh.[187] India has two archipelagos: the
Lakshadweep, coral atolls off India's south-western coast; and the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain in the Andaman Sea.[188]

Indian climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert, both of
which drive the economically and culturally pivotal summer and winter monsoons.
[189] The Himalayas prevent cold Central Asian katabatic winds from blowing in,
keeping the bulk of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations at similar
latitudes.[190][191] The Thar Desert plays a crucial role in attracting the
moisture-laden south-west summer monsoon winds that, between June and October,
provide the majority of India's rainfall.[189] Four major climatic groupings
predominate in India: tropical wet, tropical dry, subtropical humid, and montane.
[192]

Temperatures in India have risen by 0.7 °C (1.3 °F) between 1901 and 2018.[193]
Climate change in India is often thought to be the cause. The retreat of Himalayan
glaciers has adversely affected the flow rate of the major Himalayan rivers,
including the Ganges and the Brahmaputra.[194] According to some current
projections, the number and severity of droughts in India will have markedly
increased by the end of the present century.[195]

Biodiversity
Main articles: Forestry in India and Wildlife of India
India is a megadiverse country, a term employed for 17 countries that display high
biological diversity and contain many species exclusively indigenous, or endemic,
to them.[196] India is the habitat for 8.6% of all mammals, 13.7% of bird species,
7.9% of reptile species, 6% of amphibian species, 12.2% of fish species, and 6.0%
of all flowering plant species.[197][198] Fully a third of Indian plant species are
endemic.[199] India also contains four of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots,[69]
or regions that display significant habitat loss in the presence of high endemism.
[o][200]

India's most dense forests, such as the tropical moist forest of the Andaman
Islands, the Western Ghats, and Northeast India, occupy approximately 3% of its
land area.[201][202] Moderately dense forest, whose canopy density is between 40%
and 70%, occupies 9.39% of India's land area.[201][202] It predominates in the
temperate coniferous forest of the Himalayas, the moist deciduous sal forest of
eastern India, and the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India.
[203] India has two natural zones of thorn forest, one in the Deccan Plateau,
immediately east of the Western Ghats, and the other in the western part of the
Indo-Gangetic plain, now turned into rich agricultural land by irrigation, its
features no longer visible.[204]

Among the Indian subcontinent's notable indigenous trees are the astringent
Azadirachta indica, or neem, which is widely used in rural Indian herbal medicine,
[205] and the luxuriant Ficus religiosa, or peepul,[206] which is displayed on the
ancient seals of Mohenjo-daro,[207] and under which the Buddha is recorded in the
Pali canon to have sought enlightenment.[208]