India

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country (with over 1.2 billion people), and the world’s most populous democracy. India is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south, the Arabian Sea to the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal to the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, and Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is close to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share maritime borders with Thailand and Indonesia.

The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilization in the 3rd millennium BCE. In the following millennium, the earliest scriptures of Hinduism were composed. Social stratification based on caste emerged in the first millennium BCE, alongside the rise of Buddhism and Jainism. Early political unification occurred under the Maurya and Gupta Empires, while the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as Southeast Asia.

During the medieval period, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, further enriching the region’s cultural diversity, and Sikhism emerged. Much of northern India came under the Delhi Sultanate, while the south was unified under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy flourished in the 17th century under the Mughal Empire. By the mid-18th century, the subcontinent fell under the rule of the British East India Company and later, in the mid-19th century, under British Crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, and under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership, it became known for nonviolent resistance, ultimately leading to India’s independence in 1947.