India

Geography

India is located in South Asia south of the Himalayan Mountains and borders the Indian Ocean with a coastline of about 7,000 km. Here also about 1,200, often uninhabited islands belong to the country. The surface state has a size of 3.29 million km². This corresponds to nearly 5 times the size of Texas. India is thus the second largest country in Asia after China and the seventh largest in the world. Only a relatively small percentage of the population (35.9%) is urban. The majority of the inhabitants thus live in rural areas.

The vast Deccan highlands are located in the center of the country at an altitude of 500 to 100 meters. To the south are the smaller Nilgiri and Cardamom Mountains. In the northern half, the Vindhya and Satpura mountain ranges rise up to 1350 meters. In the north is the Ganges Basin, about 200 km wide, before the Himalayas rise to over 8000 m in the border region. The highest mountain in India is the Kangchenjunga with a height of 8,586 meters at the border to Nepal. This is also the third highest peak in the world.

The northern borders are not uniformly defined. India considers the areas around Gilgit, Asad, Jammu and Kashmir to be its own territory. At the same time, however, Pakistan also lays claim to this region. India is also in dispute with China over the Tibetan region of Aksai Chin.

India has direct borders with its six neighbors Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, China, Nepal and Pakistan. If the northernmost of the disputed areas is included, there is also a border with Afghanistan at a length of about 100 km. At the southern tip of the country, there is also a bridge to Sri Lanka.

Climate in India

India's climate regions vary from temperate in the north to subtropical in the center, to tropical monsoon regions in the south. The north is characterized by the foothills of the Himalayas. At high altitudes, there are snowfalls with alpine conditions in winter. However, the summers are very hot with temperatures of up to 50°C. The central and southern parts of the country are hit by heavy rains from June to September. The high humidity then makes for an unpleasant sticky weather. Due to the influence of the Indian Ocean, however, temperatures are lower and fluctuate between 25 and 35°C during the day, depending on the season. The rainy season begins around May and lasts until October.

• Detailed climate data for India and 7 individual greater regions
• Earthquakes
• Tsunamis
• Cyclones

Languages

India's nationwide official languages are Hindi and English, while the constitution lists 22 "scheduled languages" (including Hindi, but excluding English) with a special status. Each state can also define its own official languages, which do not have to be one of these.

Mother tongue	Distribution
Hindi	40.0 %
Bengali	8.0 %
Telugu	7.2 %
Marathi	6.7 %
Tamil	5.8 %
Urdu	5.0 %
Gujarati	4.4 %
Kannada	3.6 %
English	3.2 %
Malayalam	3.2 %
Oriya	3.2 %
Punjabi	2.8 %
Bhojpuri	2.2 %
Assamese	1.3 %
Maithili	1.2 %
other	2.2 %

Religions

Religion	Distribution
Bahaists	0.2%
Buddhists	0.7%
Christs	2.3%
Hinduists	79.8%
Sunni	9.5%
Shia	3.5%
Jains	0.4%
Sikhs	1.7%
other	1.9%

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Economy

GDP:	3,416.65 bn $
Exportations:	767.64 bn $
Importations:	902.30 bn $
› Tourism receipts:	9.14 bn $
› Debt rate:	83.13 %
› Unemployment rate:	4.17 %
› Inflation rate:	6.70 %
› Corruption index:	39 (bad)
› Energy consumption:	1,229.4 bn kWh

According to the definition from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), India is a developing country because of its lower economic performance. Despite this classification, the country is currently also one of the emerging markets, i.e. countries with increasing industrialization.

With an average annual income of 2,390 USD India is one of the lower middle-income countries.

Land use

7% Urban areas:	222,688 km²
60% Agricultural areas:	1,987,148 km²
24% Forest:	797,818 km²
10% Water areas:	314,069 km²
9% Others:	279,605 km²

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Transport

Roadways:	6,700,000 km
Railways:	68,988 km
Waterways:	20,275 km
Reg. vehicles:	80,888,051
› Airports: