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, crude oil, limestone
Population: 931 million (27% urban, 73% rural)
Life expectancy: 60 (female); 60 (male)
Infant mortality: 90 per 1,000 births
Literacy rate: 34% (female); 62% (male)
Ethnic divisions: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%
Principal languages: Hindi, English, and 14 other official languages (Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit); 24 languages spoken by a million or more persons each; numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; English is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindustani, a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu, is spoken widely throughout northern India.
Principal religions: Hindu 82.6%, Muslim 11.4%, Christian 2.4%, Sikh 2.0%, Buddhist 0.7%, Jains 0.5%, other 0.4%
Rank of affluence among U.N. members: 152/183
A crowded, ancient place, India can trace its civilization back for more than 5,000 years. The sub-continent is home to several great rivers, most notably the sacred Ganges. More than 60 percent of its land is arable. Over the centuries waves of foreign invaders have ruled--Aryans, Moguls, Portuguese, English--until finally Mohandas Gandhi's campaign of nonviolent noncooperation with the British government brought independence in 1947.
Riots immediately broke out and India split into two parts: Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan (the latter subsequently splitting into two more nations, Pakistan and Bangladesh). The world's biggest democracy, India continues to battle against its tendency to fragment into fighting religious factions.
Though it is the birthplace of the Buddha, Hinduism (with its rigid caste system) dominates the customs and lives of the world's second-largest population. Outside of the cities, the role of women as subservient child-bearers hasn't changed much in a thousand years. Progress in providing a basic standard of living for its people has
