India

[Country map of India]

Map ©1996 NGS Cartographic Division. Developed in association with GeoSystems Global Corp. World Map

Geography

Location: Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Bangladesh and Pakistan

Map references: Asia

Area:
total area: 3,287,590 km2
land area: 2,973,190 km2
comparative area: slightly more than one-third the size of the US

Land boundaries: total 14,103 km, Bangladesh 4,053 km, Bhutan 605 km, Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km, Pakistan 2,912 km

Coastline: 7,000 km

Climate: varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north

Terrain: upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, Himalayas in north

Natural resources: coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone

Land use:
arable land: 55%
permanent crops: 1%
meadows and pastures: 4%
forest and woodland: 23%
other: 17%

Irrigated land: 430,390 sq km (1989)


People

Population: 936,545,814 (July 1995 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 35% (female 159,921,309; male 168,812,255)
15-64 years: 61% (female 274,105,407; male 296,145,798)
65 years and over: 4% (female 18,870,762; male 18,690,283) (July 1995 est.)

Population growth rate: 1.77% (1995 est.)

Birth rate: 27.78 births/1,000 population (1995 est.)

Death rate: 10.07 deaths/1,000 population (1995 est.)

Net migration rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1995 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 76.3 deaths/1,000 live births (1995 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 59.04 years
male: 58.5 years
female: 59.61 years (1995 est.)

Total fertility rate: 3.4 children born/woman (1995 est.)

Nationality:
noun: Indian(s)
adjective: Indian

Ethnic divisions: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%

Religions: Hindu 80%, Muslim 14%, Christian 2.4%, Sikh 2%, Buddhist 0.7%, Jains 0.5%, other 0.4%

Languages: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, Hindi the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali(official), Telugu (official), Marathi (official), Tamil (official), Urdu (official), Gujarati (official), Malayalam (official), Kannada (official), Oriya (official), Punjabi (official), Assamese (official), Kashmiri (official), Sindhi (official), Sanskrit (official), Hindustani a popular variant of Hindu/Urdu, is spoken widely throughout northern India
note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible

Literacy: age 7 and over can read and write (1991)
total population: 52%
male: 64%
female: 39%

Labor force: 314.751 million (1990)
by occupation: agriculture 65% (1993 est.)


Government

Names:
conventional long form: Republic of India
conventional short form: India

Digraph: IN

Type: federal republic

Capital: New Delhi

Administrative divisions: 25 states and 7 union territories*; Andaman and Nicobar Islands*, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh*, Dadra and Nagar Haveli*, Daman and Diu*, Delhi*, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep*, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa, Pondicherry*, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal

Independence: 15 August 1947 (from UK)

National holiday: Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic, 26 January (1950)

Constitution: 26 January 1950

Legal system: based on English common law; limited judicial review of legislative acts; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations

Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal


Economy

Overview: India's economy is a mixture of traditional village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries, and a multitude of support services. Faster economic growth in the 1980s permitted a significant increase in real per capita private consumption. A large share of the population, perhaps as much as 40%, remains too poor to afford an adequate diet. Financial strains in 1990 and 1991 prompted government austerity measures that slowed industrial growth but permitted India to meet its international payment obligations without rescheduling its debt. Production, trade, and investment reforms since 1991 have provided new opportunities for Indian businessmen and an estimated 100 million to 200 million middle class consumers. New Delhihas always paid its foreign debts on schedule and has stimulated exports, attracted foreign investment, and revived confidence in India's economic prospects. Foreign exchange reserves, precariously low three years ago, now total more than $19 billion. Positive factors for the remainder of the 1990s are India's strong entrepreneurial class and the central government's recognition of the continuing need for market-oriented approaches to economic development, for example in upgrading the wholly inadequate communications facilities. Negative factors include the desperate poverty of hundreds of millions of Indians and the impact of the huge and expanding population on an already overloaded environment.

National product: GDP - purchasing power parity - $1.2539 trillion (1994 est.)

National product real growth rate: 5% (1994 est.)

National product per capita: $1,360 (1994 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 10% (1994 est.)

Unemployment rate: NA%

Budget:
revenues: $30.85 billion
expenditures: $48.35 billion, including capital expenditures of $10.5 billion (FY93/94)

Exports: $24.4 billion (f.o.b., 1994 est.)
commodities: clothing, gems and jewelry, engineering goods, chemicals, leather manufactures, cotton yarn, and fabric
partners: US, Japan, Germany, UK, Hong Kong

Imports: $25.5 billion (c.i.f., 1994 est.)
commodities: crude oil and petroleum products, machinery, gems, fertilizer, chemicals
partners: US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, UK, Belgium, Japan

External debt: $89.2 billion (November 1994)

Industrial production: growth rate 7% (1994 est.); accounts for 28% of GDP

Electricity:
capacity: 81,200,000 kW
production: 314 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 324 kWh (1993)

Industries: textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery

Agriculture: accounts for 34% of GDP; principal crops - rice, wheat, oilseeds, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; livestock - cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, poultry; fish catch of about 3 million metric tons ranks India among the world's top 10 fishing nations

Currency: 1 Indian rupee (Re) = 100 paise

Fiscal year: 1 April - 31 March


Transportation

Railroads:
total: 62,211 km (6,500 km electrified; 12,617 km double track)
broad gauge: 34,544 km 1.676-m gauge
narrow gauge: 23,599 km 1.000-m gauge; 4,068 km 0.762-m and 0.610-m gauge (1994 est.)

Highways:
total: 1.97 million km
paved: 960,000 km
unpaved: gravel, crushed stone, earth 1.01 million km (1989)

Inland waterways: 16,180 km; 3,631 km navigable by large vessels

Pipelines: crude oil 3,497 km; petroleum products 1,703 km; natural gas 902 km (1989)

Ports: Bombay, Calcutta, Cochin, Haldia, Kandla, Madras, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Pondicherry, Port Blair (Andaman Islands), Tuticorin, Vishakhapatnam

Merchant marine:
total: 299 ships (1,000 GRT or over) totaling 6,288,902 GRT/10,454,178 DWT
ships by type: bulk 114, cargo 78, chemical tanker 9, combination bulk 2, combination ore/oil 5, container 10, liquefied gas tanker 6, oil tanker 68, passenger-cargo 5, roll-on/roll-off cargo 1, short-sea passenger 1

Airports:
total: 352
with paved runways over 3,047 m: 11
with paved runways 2,438 to 3,047 m: 48
with paved runways 1,524 to 2,437 m: 85
with paved runways 914 to 1,523 m: 72
with paved runways under 914 m: 81
with unpaved runways 2,438 to 3,047 m: 2
with unpaved runways 1,524 to 2,438 m: 7
with unpaved runways 914 to 1,523 m: 46


Flag by Dream Maker Software, Inc.
Information obtained from CIA, The World Factbook 1995