 |
|
| |
The Republic of India is a country that occupies a greater part of South Asia. It has borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan in the northwest, the People's Republic of China, Nepal, and Bhutan in the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar in the east, with a coastline that stretches for over seven thousand kilometres. Its neighbours in the Indian Ocean are the island nations of the Maldives in the southwest, Sri Lanka in the south, and Indonesia in the southeast. India is the second most populous country in the world, with a population of over one billion and is the seventh largest country by geographical area. It is a constitutional republic consisting of twenty eight states and six union territories. The word India derives from the Old Persian word Sindhu, the local name for the Indus river.
A centre of important historic trade routes, India is the birthplace of some of the most ancient civilisations, and is home to four major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. A former colony of the British Empire before gaining independence in 1947, India has witnessed signficant growth economically and militarily after the liberalization of the country's economy in the 1990s.
