India

India is a country of South Asia whose total area is 3,287,263 square kilometres. Its population stands at about 1.4 billion, according to the United Nations. India and China each have about 1.4 billion people, making them the world's two most populous countries.

The country is made up of 28 states and eight union territories, and its national capital is New Delhi. India's land frontier abuts six countries and is roughly one-third coastline, bordering Pakistan, Nepal, China, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

India is home to hundreds of languages and dialects from four main language families, with Hindi and English as lingua francas and 22 scheduled languages recognised by the constitution.

The Himalayas began rising about 50 million years ago, when the northward-moving Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate. They stretch uninterruptedly for about 2,500 kilometres from west to east, forming a barrier between Tibet and the Indian subcontinent. Within this range stands Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, soaring 8,849 metres above sea level.

The Ganges rises in the southern Great Himalayas, its Bhagirathi headstream emerging from a meltwater cave at the base of the Gangotri glacier. It runs about 2,510 kilometres, drains a fourth of India's territory, and reaches the sea through the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta. The river has been revered as the holy river of Hinduism since time immemorial.

The Ganges is polluted by untreated sewage, industrial waste, agricultural runoff and the remains of partially burned funeral pyres.

India's population stands at about 1.4 billion according to the United Nations. India and China each have about 1.4 billion people, making them the world's two most populous countries.

Hindus make up about 79.8 per cent of India's population and Muslims about 14.2 per cent. Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains account for most of the remainder.

Census 2011 provisionally counted India's population at 1,210.2 million people, including 623.7 million males and 586.5 million females.

The earliest of India's urban civilizations reached its mature phase between about 2600 and 1900 BCE. It was first identified in 1921 at Harappa and then in 1922 at Mohenjo-daro, both of which lie in present-day Pakistan. In the lower city of Moenjodaro, buildings were laid out along streets intersecting at right angles, in a plan incorporating systems of sanitation and drainage. The remarkable uniformity of weights and measures across the Indus lands, along with civic works such as great granaries, implies strong political and administrative control over a wide area. Because no Indus inscriptions can be read or interpreted, far less is known of this civilization's society than of contemporaneous Mesopotamia. Its decline was probably not uniform; Mohenjo-daro was already dying and was dealt a final blow by invaders from the north.

The Mauryan empire was founded by Chandragupta Maurya after Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE and lasted about 321–185 BCE. Centred at Pataliputra near the junction of the Son and Ganges rivers, it was the first empire to encompass most of the Indian subcontinent. The Mauryan state was an efficient autocracy with a standing army and civil service, and its bureaucracy was the model for the Artha-shastra. Ashoka's rock and pillar edicts, including the lion capital from Sarnath that became India's national emblem, contain statements about his thoughts and actions. The inception of Sanchi as a sacred centre is attributed to Ashoka, whose reign is considered instrumental to the spread of Buddhism. After Ashoka's death the empire shrank through invasions, defections and quarrels over succession; its last ruler, Brihadratha, was killed in 185 BCE by Pushyamitra, who founded the Shunga dynasty.

Historians once regarded the Gupta period as India's classical age, and the decimal system of notation and advances in astronomy and mathematics are traditionally attributed to it. The astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata lived and worked near Pataliputra, then the Gupta capital, and composed the Aryabhatiya about 499 CE. Under Kumara Gupta and Skanda Gupta the empire declined amid invasion by the Hunas, a branch of the Hephthalites, and had dwindled to a small size by the mid-sixth century.

The Mughal Empire was opened by Babur, whose victory at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 established the dynasty. By April 1526 he controlled Delhi and Agra, having defeated Ibrahim Lodi's army. By the late 16th century the Mughal ruler Akbar had extended the empire across northern India from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. Aurangzeb's conquest of the Deccan sultanates brought the empire to its greatest extent, and late 17th-century Mughal India produced roughly 24 percent of world GDP. The Mughal state endured in name until 1857, when the British deposed the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II.

Among the enduring monuments of the period is the Taj Mahal, built at Agra between 1631 and 1648 by order of Shah Jahan for his favourite wife and called the jewel of Muslim art in India.

Crown rule began in 1858, following the 1857 revolt. From 1858 until the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947 the subcontinent was under direct British rule, a period called the British raj. In 1876 Queen Victoria added the title Empress of India to her regality at the prompting of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. British railroad companies expanded India's network to some 25,000 miles of track by 1900 from more than 5,000 miles in 1869 and boosted the extraction of raw materials.

The Indian Independence Movement was led by Gandhi, who is best known for his use of nonviolent resistance, or satyagraha, and for his methods of peaceful protest. He organized mass campaigns, among them the Salt March, the Quit India Movement and noncooperation, to disrupt British rule and press for self-governance. Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi on January 30 in 1948 by Nathuram Godse while on his way to an evening prayer meeting.

The Indian Independence Act 1947 provided for two independent Dominions to be set up in India from 15 August 1947, to be known as India and Pakistan. The Constituent Assembly of India adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949. It came into effect on 26 January 1950, and India became a republic. The Constitution of India is the world's lengthiest written constitution; at its commencement it had 395 articles, 22 parts and 8 schedules.

Nehru became the first prime minister of independent India. He established parliamentary government and pursued neutralist, nonaligned policies in foreign affairs.

India ranks as the world's fifth-largest economy, a position it held in 2023. Its share of global output doubled between 2000 and 2023, reaching 3.4 percent. The country continued to be the fastest-growing major economy, recording growth of 6.5 percent in the fiscal year 2024-25 despite a challenging global environment.

India's nominal GDP was estimated at ₹ 345.47 lakh crore for the fiscal year 2025-26 under Second Advance Estimates.

The country's IT and BPM industry revenue reached an estimated US$ 315.4 billion in FY26, while exports contributed US$ 246.4 billion. The IT services and BPO/ITeS segment provided direct employment to an estimated 5.4 million people in the fiscal year to March 2023, according to industry estimates. Global Capability Centres helped drive a 16 percent year-on-year rise in IT industry hiring in April 2025 alongside rising AI adoption.

The Indian Space Research Organisation was formed on 15 August 1969 by superseding the Indian National Committee for Space Research.

Chandrayaan-3 was launched on 14 July 2023 by the LVM3 M4 vehicle from Sriharikota, beginning its journey to the Moon. On 23 August 2023 the mission successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface, a milestone celebrated across India.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as Mangalyaan, was launched on 5 November 2013 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. After a journey of about ten months, it entered Mars orbit on 24 September 2014. The mission succeeded on its first attempt, a cost-effective achievement that ISRO says captured world attention.

The organisation's launch record includes the PSLV-C37 mission, which lifted off from Sriharikota and placed 104 satellites in orbit in a single flight in February 2017.

Yoga is an ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice that originated in India, its Sanskrit name meaning to join or to unite body and consciousness. It combines poses, meditation, controlled breathing and chanting to help practitioners achieve self-realization, ease suffering and reach a state of liberation. Traditionally, yoga was passed down through the Guru-Shishya (master-pupil) model, with gurus as the main custodians of its knowledge and skills. UNESCO inscribed yoga in 2016 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. By resolution 69/131 adopted on 11 December 2014 the UN General Assembly proclaimed 21 June the International Day of Yoga; India proposed the resolution, which a record 175 member states endorsed.

Bollywood is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, a portmanteau of Bombay and Hollywood and the largest component of the Indian moviemaking industry. At the turn of the twenty-first century the Indian film industry, with Bollywood remaining its largest component, was producing as many as 1,000 feature films annually. Bollywood films are known for spectacular song-and-dance routines, choreographed fight scenes, emotion-charged melodrama and larger-than-life heroes. Aamir Khan's Dangal (2016) is Indian cinema's top-grossing film worldwide, with lifetime earnings of more than 2000 crore rupees ($260 million).

India's recorded past begins with the mature urban phase of the Indus civilization, which is dated to about 2600–1900 BCE. That civilization was first identified in 1921 at Harappa and then in 1922 at Mohenjo-daro, both of which lie in present-day Pakistan. Its remarkable uniformity of weights and measures, together with civic works such as great granaries, implies strong political and administrative control over a wide area. No Indus inscriptions can be read or interpreted, so far less is known of this civilization's society than of contemporaneous Mesopotamia.

The Mauryan empire was founded by Chandragupta Maurya after Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE and lasted about 321–185 BCE. Centred at Pataliputra near the junction of the Son and Ganges rivers, it was the first empire to encompass most of the Indian subcontinent. After Ashoka's death the empire shrank through invasions, defections and quarrels over succession; its last ruler, Brihadratha, was killed in 185 BCE by Pushyamitra, who founded the Shunga dynasty.

Babur's victory at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 opened the Mughal Empire. By April 1526 he controlled Delhi and Agra, founding the Mughal dynasty. By the late 16th century the Mughal ruler Akbar had extended the empire across northern India from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. The Mughal state endured in name until 1857, when the British deposed the last emperor, Bahadur Shah II.

Crown rule began in 1858 after the 1857 revolt. From 1858 until the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947 the subcontinent was under direct British rule, a period called the British raj. The Indian Independence Act 1947 provided for two independent Dominions to be set up in India from 15 August 1947 to be known as India and Pakistan.

The Constituent Assembly of India adopted the Constitution on 26 November 1949; it came into effect on 26 January 1950 and India became a republic. The Indian Space Research Organisation was formed on 15 August 1969 by superseding the Indian National Committee for Space Research. On 23 August 2023 Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft-landed on the Moon, a milestone celebrated across India.

India's demographic scale is matched by few nations: together with China it accounts for roughly 1.4 billion people, placing the two countries as the world's most populous.^{2Population · United Nations ↗} The country's religious profile is overwhelmingly Hindu, with Hindus making up about 79.8 per cent of the population and Muslims about 14.2 per cent, while Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains account for most of the remainder.^{5Key findings about the religious composition of India · Pew Research Center ↗} These shares derive from the 2011 census, which provisionally counted India's population at 1,210.2 million people, including 623.7 million males and 586.5 million females.^{6Census of India 2011 - Provisional Population Totals (presentation) · Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India (Ministry of Home Affairs) ↗}

Economically, India ranks as the world's fifth-largest economy, with its share of global output doubling between 2000 and 2023 to reach 3.4 percent.^{21India Overview · World Bank Group ↗} Nominal GDP was estimated at ₹ 345.47 lakh crore for the fiscal year 2025-26 under Second Advance Estimates.^{22PIB releases - PSLV-C37 104-satellite launch and MoSPI Second Advance Estimates for FY 2025-26 · Press Information Bureau, Government of India ↗} The country continued to be the fastest-growing major economy, recording growth of 6.5 percent in the fiscal year 2024-25 despite a challenging global environment.^{21India Overview · World Bank Group ↗}

The IT and BPM industry reached an estimated revenue of US$ 315.4 billion in FY26, with exports contributing US$ 246.4 billion.^{23IT & BPM Industry in India · India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) ↗} Its services and BPO/ITeS segment provided direct employment to an estimated 5.4 million people in the fiscal year to March 2023 according to industry estimates.^{23IT & BPM Industry in India · India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) ↗} Global Capability Centres helped drive a 16 percent year-on-year rise in IT industry hiring in April 2025 alongside rising AI adoption.^{23IT & BPM Industry in India · India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) ↗}

At the turn of the twenty-first century the Indian film industry, with Bollywood remaining its largest component, was producing as many as 1,000 feature films annually.^{29Bollywood: Hindi film industry, history and facts · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗} Bollywood is the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, a portmanteau of Bombay and Hollywood and the largest component of the Indian moviemaking industry.^{29Bollywood: Hindi film industry, history and facts · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗} Its films are known for spectacular song-and-dance routines, choreographed fight scenes, emotion-charged melodrama and larger-than-life heroes.^{29Bollywood: Hindi film industry, history and facts · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗}