India facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Republic of India Bhārat Gaṇarājya
Flag State emblem
Motto: "Satyameva Jayate" (Sanskrit) "Truth Alone Triumphs"
Anthem: "Jana Gana Mana" (Hindi) "Thou Art the Ruler of the Minds of All People"
National song: "Vande Mataram" (Sanskrit) "I Bow to Thee, Mother"
Territory controlled by India shown in dark green; territory claimed but not controlled shown in light green
Capital	New Delhi 28°36′50″N 77°12′30″E / 28.61389°N 77.20833°E / 28.61389; 77.20833
Largest city	Mumbai
Largest city	Delhi
Official languages	Hindi English
Recognised regional languages	State level and Eighth Schedule 8th Scheduled Assamese Bengali Boro Dogri Gujarati Hindi Kannada Kashmiri Konkani Maithili Malayalam Manipuri Marathi Nepali Odia Punjabi Sanskrit Santali Sindhi Tamil Telugu Urdu State level Kokborok Lepcha Mizo Sikkimese all the 8th scheduled languages (except Sindhi, Kashmiri and Dogri)
Native languages	447 languages
Religion (2011)	79.8% Hinduism 14.2% Islam 2.3% Christianity 1.7% Sikhism 0.7% Buddhism 0.4% Jainism 0.23% unaffiliated 0.65% other
Demonym(s)	Indian others
Government	Federal parliamentary republic
• President	Droupadi Murmu
• Vice President	Jagdeep Dhankhar
• Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Legislature	Parliament
• Upper house	Rajya Sabha
• Lower house	Lok Sabha
Independence  from the United Kingdom
• Dominion	15 August 1947
• Republic	26 January 1950
Area
• Total	3,287,263 km2 (1,269,219 sq mi) (7th)
• Water (%)	9.6
Population
• 2023 estimate	1,428,627,663 (1st)
• 2011 census	1,210,854,977 (2nd)
• Density	427.7/km2 (1,107.7/sq mi) (30th)
GDP (PPP)	2024 estimate
• Total	$16.019 trillion (3rd)
• Per capita	$11,111 (122nd)
GDP (nominal)	2024 estimate
• Total	$3.889 trillion (5th)
• Per capita	$2,697 (141st)
Gini (2021)	▼ 32.8 medium
HDI (2022)	0.644 medium · 134th
Currency	Indian rupee (₹) (INR)
Time zone	UTC+05:30 (IST)
	DST is not observed.
Date format	dd-mm-yyyy
Driving side	left
Calling code	+91
ISO 3166 code	IN
Internet TLD	.in (others)

India (Hindi: Bhārat), officially the Republic of India (Hindi: Bhārat Gaṇarājya) and also known as Hindustān or Bhārat within the country, is a country in South Asia. It is the largest country by number of people and seventh largest country by land area. India is a peninsula, bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It has six neighbors: Pakistan in the north-west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan in the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar in the east. Sri Lanka is nearby to the south.

The capital city of India is New Delhi. India has the second largest military force in the world and is also a nuclear weapon state. India's economy became the world's fastest growing in the G20 developing nations during 2014, replacing the People's Republic of China. India's literacy and wealth are also rising. According to New World Wealth, India is the fifth richest country in the world with a total individual wealth of $12.6 trillion. However, it still has many social and economic issues like poverty and corruption. India is a founding member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and has signed the Kyoto Protocol.

India has the fifth largest economy by nominal GDP, the third largest by GDP (PPP) and is the fastest growing major economy. India is a nuclear power and has the second largest standing military in the world. India has its own space agency (ISRO) and has done various research throughout the solar system, including sending spacecraft to the Moon, Mars, and Venus. India is also a member of the G20 developing nations, and has been described as a potential superpower due to its rising economy and increase in global influence.

India has the fourth largest number of spoken languages per country in the world, only behind Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Nigeria. People of many different religions live there, including the five most popular world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam, and Christianity. The first three religions originated from the Indian subcontinent along with Jainism.

National symbols

National emblem of India

The National emblem of India shows four lions standing back-to-back. The lions symbolises (shows, displays) power, pride, confidence, and courage (bravery). Only the government can use this emblem, according to the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005.

The name India comes from the Greek word, Indus. This came from the word sindhu, which, over time, turned into Hind or Hindi or Hindu. The preferred endonym (the name given to the country by its own people) is "Bhārat" in Hindi and other Indian languages as contrasted with names from outsiders. Some of the national symbols are:

• National anthem: Jana Gana Mana
• National song: Vande Mataram
• National animal: Tiger
• National bird: Peacock
• National flower: Lotus
• National tree: Banyan
• National river: Ganges (Ganga)
• National Aquatic Animal: Ganges River Dolphin
• National fruit: Mango
• National heritage animal: Elephant
• National heritage bird: Indian eagle

• 

  Panthera tigris
  Tiger
  (national animal)
• 

  Pavo cristatus
  Peacock
  (national bird)
• 

  Nelumbonucifera
  Lotus
  (national flower)
• 

  Ficus benghalensis
  Banyan
  (national tree)
• 

  Ganges river

• 

  Ganges river dolphin

• 

  Mango

• 

  Indian eagle

History

The Taj Mahal in Agra was built by Shah Jahan as a memorial to his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is thought to be of "outstanding universal value".

Some of the main classical languages of the world, Tamil and Sanskrit, were born in today's India. Both of these languages are more than 3000 years old. The country founded a religion called Hinduism, which most Indians still follow. Later, a king named Chandragupt Maurya built an empire called the Maurya Empire in 300 BC. It made most of South Asia into one whole country. From 180 BC, many other countries invaded India. Even later (100 BC  AD 1100), other Indian dynasties (empires) came, including the Chalukyas, Cholas, Pallavas, and Pandyas. Southern India at that time was famous for its science, art, and writing. The Cholas of Thanjavur were pioneers at war in the seas and invaded Malaya, Borneo, Cambodia. The influence of Cholas are still noticeable in Southeast Asia.

Many dynasties ruled India around the year 1000. Some of these were the Mughal, Vijayanagara, and the Maratha empires. In the 1600s, European countries invaded India, and the British controlled most of India by 1856.

In the early 1900s, millions of people peacefully started to protest against British control. One of the people who led the freedom movement was Mahatma Gandhi, who only used peaceful tactics, including a way called "ahimsa", which means "non-violence". On 15 August 1947, India peacefully became free and independent from the British Empire. India's constitution was founded on 26 January 1950. Every year, on this day, Indians celebrate Republic Day. The first official leader (Prime Minister) of India was Jawaharlal Nehru.

After 1947, India had a socialist planned economy. It is one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations. It has fought many wars since independence from Britain, including the wars in 1947-48, 1965, 1971, and 1999 with Pakistan and in 1962 with China. It also fought a war to capture Goa, a Portuguese-built port and a city that was not a part of India until 1961. The Portuguese refused to give it to the country, and so India had to use force and the Portuguese were defeated. India has also done nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998. It is one of the few countries that have nuclear bombs. Since 1991, India has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Government

Parliament of India

India has the most people of any democracy in the world.

India's government is divided into three parts: the Legislative (the one that makes the laws, the Parliament), the Executive (the government), and the Judiciary (the one that makes sure that the laws are obeyed, the supreme court).

The legislative branch is made up of the Parliament of India, which is in New Delhi, the capital of India. The Parliament of India is divided into two houses: the upper house, Rajya Sabha (Council of States); and the lower house, Lok Sabha (House of People). The Rajya Sabha has 250 members, and the Lok Sabha has 552 members.

The executive branch is made up of the President, Vice President, Prime Minister, and the Council of Ministers. The President of India is elected for a period of five years. The President can choose the Prime Minister, who has most of the power. The Council of Ministers, such as the Minister of Defence, helps the Prime Minister. The president of India has less power than the prime minister.

The judicial branch is made up of the courts of India, including the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice of India is the head of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court members have the power to stop a law being passed by Parliament if they think that the law is illegal and contradicts (opposes) the Constitution of India. In India, there are also 24 High Courts.

Geography and climate

Rivers of India

India is the seventh biggest country in the world. It is the main part of the Indian subcontinent. The countries next to India are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Bhutan, and Nepal. It is also near Sri Lanka, an island country. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a union territory of India, is near Thailand, Indonesia, and Myanmar.

India is a peninsula, which means that it is surrounded on three sides by water. In the west is the Arabian Sea, in the south is the Indian Ocean, and in the east is the Bay of Bengal. The coastline of India is of about 7,517 km (4,671 mi) long. The northern part of India has many mountains. The most famous mountain range in India is the Himalayas, which have some of the tallest mountains in the world. There are many rivers in India. The main rivers are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Yamuna, the Godavari, the Kaveri, the Narmada, and the Krishna.

India has different climates. In the South, the climate is mainly tropical, which means it can get very hot in summer and cool in winter. The northern part, though, has a cooler climate, called sub-tropical, and even alpine in mountainous regions. The Himalayas, in the alpine climate region, can get extremely cold. There is very heavy rainfall along the west coast and in the Eastern Himalayan foothills. The west, though, is drier. Because of some of the deserts of India, all of India gets rain for four months of the year. That time is called the monsoon. That is because the deserts attract water-filled winds from the Indian Ocean, which give rain when they come into India. When the monsoon rains come late or not so heavily, droughts (when the land dries out because there is less rain) are possible. Monsoons normally come around July–August.

Military

The Indian Armed Forces is the military of India. It is made up of an Army, Navy and Air Force. There are other parts like Paramilitary and Strategic Nuclear Command.

The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief. However, it is managed by the Ministry of Defence. In 2010, the Indian Armed Forces had 1.32 million active personnel. This makes it one of the largest militaries in the world.

The Indian Army is becoming more modern by buying and making new weapons. It is also building defenses against missiles of other countries. In 2011, India imported more weapons than any other nation in the world.

From its independence in 1947, India fought four wars with Pakistan and a war with China.

Indian states

For administration purposes, India has been divided into smaller pieces. Most of these pieces are called states, some are called union territories. States and union territories are different in the way they are represented. Most union territories are ruled by administrators (called Lieutenant Governors) sent by the central government. All the states, and the territories of Delhi, and Puducherry elect their local government themselves. In total, there are twenty-eight states and eight union territories.

States:

Union territories:

Trouble with the borders

There are disputes about certain parts of the Indian borders. Countries do not agree on where the borders are. Pakistan and China do not recognise the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian government claims it as an Indian state. Similarly, the Republic of India does not recognise the Pakistani and Chinese parts of Kashmir.

In 1914, British India and Tibet agreed on the McMahon Line, as part of the Simla Accord. In July 1914, China withdrew from the agreement. Indians and Tibetans see this line as the official border. China does not agree, and both mainland China and Taiwan do not recognize that Arunachal Pradesh belongs to India. According to them, it is a part of South Tibet, which belongs to China.

Economy

The economy of the country is among the world's fastest growing. It is the 7th largest in the world with a nominal GDP of $2,250 billion (USD), and in terms of PPP, the economy is 3rd largest (worth US$8.720 trillion). The growth rate is 8.25% for fiscal 2010. However, that is still $3678 (considering PPP) per person per year. India's economy is based mainly on:

• Service sector: 43%
• Industries: 41%
• Information technology: 7%
• Farming: 7%
• Outsourcing: 2%.

India's economy is diverse. Major industries include automobiles, cement, chemicals, consumer electronics, food processing, machinery, mining, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, steel, transportation equipment, and textiles.

However, despite economic growth, India continues to suffer from poverty. 27.5% of the population was living in poverty in 2004–2005. In addition, 80.4% of the population live on less than US$2 a day, which was lowered to 68% by 2009.

People

This is a map of the population density of India.

There are 1.4 billion people living in India. In 2023, India passed China to become the world's most populous country. About 65% of Indians live in rural areas, or land set aside for farming. The largest cities in India are Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad. India has 23 official languages. Altogether, 1,625 languages are spoken in India.

Languages

There are many different languages and cultures in India. There are two main language families in India, the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages. About 69% of Indians speak an Indo-Arayan language, and about 26% speak a Dravidian language. Other languages spoken in India come from the Austro-Asiatic group. Around 5% of the people speak a Tibeto-Burman language.

Hindi is the official language in India with the largest number of speakers. It is the official language of the union. Native speakers of Hindi represent about 41% of the Indian population (2001 Indian census). English is also used, mostly for business and in administration. It has the status of a 'subsidiary official language'. The constitution also recognises 21 other languages. Either many people speak those languages, or they have been recognized to be very important for Indian culture. The number of dialects in India is as high as 1,652.

In the south of India, many people speak Kannada, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. In the north, many people speak Chhattisgarhi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Marathi, Odia, and Bihari.

India has 27 official languages. Its constitution lists the name of the country in each of the languages. Hindi and English (listed in boldface) are the "official languages of the union" (Union meaning the Federal Government in Delhi); Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia are officially the "classical languages of India."

Culture

Cave paintings from the Stone Age are found across India. They show dances and rituals and suggest there was a prehistoric religion. During the Epic and Puranic periods, the earliest versions of the epic poems Ramayana and Mahabharata were written from about 500–100 BCE, although these were orally transmitted for centuries before this period. Other South Asian Stone Age sites apart from Pakistan are in modern India, such as the Bhimbetka rock shelters in central Madhya Pradesh and the Kupgal petroglyphs of eastern Karnataka, contain rock art showing religious rites and evidence of possible ritualised music.

The Harmandir Sahib or The Golden Temple of the Sikhs

Several modern religions are linked to India, namely modern Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. All of these religions have different schools (ways of thinking) and traditions that are related. As a group they are called the Eastern religions. The Indian religions are similar to one another in many ways: The basic beliefs, the way worship is done and several religious practices are very similar. These similarities mainly come from the fact that these religions have a common history and common origins. They also influenced each other.

The religion of Hinduism is the main faith followed by 79.80% of people in the Republic of India; Islam – 14.23%; Christianity – 2.30%; Sikhism – 1.72%; Buddhism – 0.70% and Jainism – 0.37%.

Technology

India sent a spacecraft to Mars for the first time in 2014. That made it the fourth country and first Asian country to do so, successfully. It was called the Mars Orbiter Mission.

ISRO launched 104 satellites in a single mission to create a world record. India became the first nation in the world to have launched over a hundred satellites in one mission. That was more than the 2014 Russian record of 37 satellites in a single launch.

Pop culture

India has the largest movie industry in the world. It is based in Bombay which is now known as Mumbai, the industry is also known as Bollywood. It makes 1,000 movies a year, about twice as many as Hollywood.

Clothing

Women in sari at an adult literacy class in Tamil Nadu

A man in dhoti and wearing a woollen shawl, in Varanasi

From ancient times until the advent of the modern, the most widely worn traditional dress in India was draped. For women it took the form of a sari, a single piece of cloth many yards long. The sari was traditionally wrapped around the lower body and the shoulder. In its modern form, it is combined with an underskirt, or Indian petticoat, and tucked in the waist band for more secure fastening. It is also commonly worn with an Indian blouse, or choli, which serves as the primary upper-body garment, the sari's end—passing over the shoulder—serving to cover the midriff and obscure the upper body's contours. For men, a similar but shorter length of cloth, the dhoti, has served as a lower-body garment.

Women (from left to right) in churidars and kameez (with back to the camera), jeans and sweater, and pink Shalwar kameez

The use of stitched clothes became widespread after Muslim rule was established at first by the Delhi sultanate (c. 1300 CE) and then continued by the Mughal Empire (c. 1525 CE). Among the garments introduced during this time and still commonly worn are: the shalwars and pyjamas, both styles of trousers, and the tunics kurta and kameez. In southern India, the traditional draped garments were to see much longer continuous use.

Shalwars are atypically wide at the waist but narrow to a cuffed bottom. They are held up by a drawstring, which causes them to become pleated around the waist. The pants can be wide and baggy, or they can be cut quite narrow, on the bias, in which case they are called churidars. When they are ordinarily wide at the waist and their bottoms are hemmed but not cuffed, they are called pyjamas. The kameez is a long shirt or tunic, its side seams left open below the waist-line. The kurta is traditionally collarless and made of cotton or silk; it is worn plain or with embroidered decoration, such as chikan; and typically falls to either just above or just below the wearer's knees.

In the last 50 years, fashions have changed a great deal in India. Increasingly, in urban northern India, the sari is no longer the apparel of everyday wear, though they remain popular on formal occasions. The traditional shalwar kameez is rarely worn by younger urban women, who favour churidars or jeans. In white-collar office settings, ubiquitous air conditioning allows men to wear sports jackets year-round. For weddings and formal occasions, men in the middle- and upper classes often wear bandgala, or short Nehru jackets, with pants, with the groom and his groomsmen sporting sherwanis and churidars. The dhoti, once the universal garment of Hindu males, the wearing of which in the homespun and handwoven khadi allowed Gandhi to bring Indian nationalism to the millions, is seldom seen in the cities.

Cuisine

South Indian vegetarian thali, or platter

Railway mutton curry from Odisha

The foundation of a typical Indian meal is a cereal cooked in a plain fashion and complemented with flavourful savoury dishes. The cooked cereal could be steamed rice; chapati, a thin unleavened bread made from wheat flour, or occasionally cornmeal, and griddle-cooked dry; the idli, a steamed breakfast cake, or dosa, a griddled pancake, both leavened and made from a batter of rice- and gram meal. The savoury dishes might include lentils, pulses and vegetables commonly spiced with ginger and garlic, but also with a combination of spices that may include coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamon and others as informed by culinary conventions. They might also include poultry, fish, or meat dishes. In some instances, the ingredients might be mixed during the process of cooking.

A platter, or thali, used for eating usually has a central place reserved for the cooked cereal, and peripheral ones for the flavourful accompaniments, which are often served in small bowls. The cereal and its accompaniments are eaten simultaneously rather than a piecemeal manner. This is accomplished by mixing—for example of rice and lentils—or folding, wrapping, scooping or dipping—such as chapati and cooked vegetables or lentils.

India has distinctive vegetarian cuisines, each a feature of the geographical and cultural histories of its adherents. The appearance of ahimsa, or the avoidance of violence toward all forms of life in many religious orders early in Indian history, especially Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, is thought to have contributed to the predominance of vegetarianism among a large segment of India's Hindu population, especially in southern India, Gujarat, the Hindi-speaking belt of north-central India, as well as among Jains. Although meat is eaten widely in India, the proportional consumption of meat in the overall diet is low. Unlike China, which has increased its per capita meat consumption substantially in its years of increased economic growth, in India the strong dietary traditions have contributed to dairy, rather than meat, becoming the preferred form of animal protein consumption.

The most significant import of cooking techniques into India during the last millennium occurred during the Mughal Empire. Dishes such as the pilaf, developed in the Abbasid caliphate, and cooking techniques such as the marinating of meat in yogurt, spread into northern India from regions to its northwest. To the simple yogurt marinade of Persia, onions, garlic, almonds, and spices began to be added in India. Rice was partially cooked and layered alternately with the sauteed meat, the pot sealed tightly, and slow cooked according to another Persian cooking technique, to produce what has today become the Indian biryani, a feature of festive dining in many parts of India. In the food served in Indian restaurants worldwide the diversity of Indian food has been partially concealed by the dominance of Punjabi cuisine. The popularity of tandoori chicken—cooked in the tandoor oven, which had traditionally been used for baking bread in the rural Punjab and the Delhi region, especially among Muslims, but which is originally from Central Asia—dates to the 1950s, and was caused in large part by an entrepreneurial response among people from the Punjab who had been displaced by the 1947 partition of India.

Sports and recreation

Girls play hopscotch in Jaora, Madhya Pradesh. Hopscotch has been commonly played by girls in rural India.

Several traditional indigenous sports such as kabaddi, kho kho, pehlwani and gilli-danda, and also martial arts such as Kalarippayattu and marma adi, remain popular. Chess is commonly held to have originated in India as chaturaṅga; in recent years, there has been a rise in the number of Indian grandmasters. Viswanathan Anand became the Chess World Champion in 2007 and held the status until 2013. Parcheesi is derived from Pachisi, another traditional Indian pastime, which in early modern times was played on a giant marble court by Mughal emperor Akbar the Great.

Cricket is the most popular sport in India. Major domestic leagues include the Indian Premier League. Professional leagues in other sports include the Indian Super League (football) and the Pro Kabaddi league.

Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar about to score a record 14,000 runs in Test cricket while playing against Australia in Bangalore, 2010

India has won two ODI Cricket world cups, the 1983 edition and the 2011 edition, as well as becoming the inaugural Twenty20 International Cricket Champions in 2007. India also has eight field hockey gold medals in the summer olympics. The improved results garnered by the Indian Davis Cup team and other Indian tennis players in the early 2010s have made tennis increasingly popular in the country. India has a comparatively strong presence in shooting sports, and has won several medals at the Olympics, the World Shooting Championships, and the Commonwealth Games. Other sports in which Indians have succeeded internationally include badminton (Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu are two of the top-ranked female badminton players in the world), boxing, and wrestling. Football is popular in West Bengal, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the north-eastern states.

India has hosted or co-hosted several international sporting events: the 1951 and 1982 Asian Games; the 1987, 1996, and 2011 Cricket World Cup tournaments; the 2003 Afro-Asian Games; the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy; the 2009 World Badminton Championships; the 2010 Hockey World Cup; the 2010 Commonwealth Games; and the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup. Major international sporting events held annually in India include the Maharashtra Open, the Mumbai Marathon, the Delhi Half Marathon, and the Indian Masters. The first Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix featured in late 2011 but has been discontinued from the F1 season calendar since 2014. India has traditionally been the dominant country at the South Asian Games. An example of this dominance is the basketball competition where the Indian team won four out of five tournaments to date.

See also

In Spanish: India para niños