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India
Geography
Size: Total land area 2,973,190 square kilometers.
Total area, including territorial seas, claimed is 3,287,590 square
kilometers.
Topography: Three main geological regions: Indo-Gangetic
Plain and Himalayas, collectively known as North India; and Peninsula
or South India. Ten physiological regions: Indo-Gangetic Plain,
northern mountains of the Himalayas, Central Highlands, Deccan or
Peninsular Plateau, East Coast (Coromandel Coast in south), West
Coast (Konkan, Kankara, and Malabar coasts), Great Indian Desert
(known as Thar Desert in Pakistan) and Rann of Kutch, valley of
the Brahmaputra River in Assam, northeastern hill ranges surrounding
Assam Valley, and islands of Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.
Climate: Climate varies significantly from Himalayas
in north to tropical south. Four seasons: relatively dry, cool winter
December to February; dry, hot summer March to May; southwest monsoon
June to September when predominating southwest maritime winds bring
rains to most of country; and northeast, or retreating, monsoon
October and November.
Society
Population: 936,545,814 estimated in July 1995,
with 1.8 percent annual growth rate. About 74 percent in rural areas
in 1991; high population density--284 persons per square kilometer
national average, major states more than 700 persons per square
kilometer; 100 persons or fewer per square kilometer in some border
states and insular territories. Bombay (officially renamed Mumbai
in 1995) largest city, with 12.6 million in 1991; twenty-three other
cities with populations of more than 1 million.
Health: In 1995 life expectancy for men 58.5 years,
for women 59.6 years; infant mortality rate 76.3 per 1,000 live
births. Malaria, filariasis, leprosy, cholera, pneumonic plague,
tuberculosis, trachoma, goiter, and diarrheal diseases all occur.
In 1991 primary health centers, subcenters, and community health
centers at local levels included more than 10,000 hospitals, 24,000
dispensaries, and 811,000 beds.
Education: Twelve-year education system; mandatory
primary and middle levels, optional secondary education; high drop-out
rate even at compulsory levels. System supervised by Department
of Education, part of Ministry of Human Resource Development. National
adult literacy rate 52.2 percent in 1991 (male 63.9 percent, female
39.4 percent). More than 180 universities, some 500 teacher training
colleges, and several thousand other colleges.
Religion: Most (82 percent) observe Hinduism;
12.1 percent Muslim, 2.3 percent Christian, 1.9 percent Sikh, 0.8
percent Buddhist, 0.4 percent Jains, 0.4 percent other, 0.1 percent
not identified.
Language: Official language Hindi; English also
has official status. For use in certain official capacities, constitution
recognizes eighteen Scheduled Languages (see Glossary): Assamese,
Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam,
Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil,
Telugu, and Urdu. Four major language families include officially
112 "mother tongues," each with 10,000 or more speakers; thirty-three
languages spoken by 1 million or more persons. Total number of languages
and dialects varies depending on source and how counted; between
179 and 188 languages and between forty-nine and 544 dialects have
been tabulated; census respondents in 1961 provided names for 1,652
different "mother tongues."
Ethnic Groups: Indo-Aryan 72 percent, Dravidian
25 percent, Mongoloid and other 3 percent. Caste system, although
no longer sanctioned by government, prevails. Some 16 percent listed
as members of Scheduled Castes , 8 percent as members of Scheduled
Tribes .
Data as of September 1995
India
Chapter 2. Geographic and Demographic Setting
INDIA IS A COUNTRY of great diversity with a wide range of landform
types, including major mountain ranges, deserts, rich agricultural
plains, and hilly jungle regions. Indeed, the term Indian subcontinent
aptly describes the enormous extent of the earth's surface
that India occupies, and any attempt to generalize about its physiography
is inaccurate. Diversity is also evident in the geographical distribution
of India's ethnic and linguistic groups. In ancient times, the major
river valleys of the Indo-Gangetic Plain of South Asia were among
the great cradles of civilization in Asia, as were the valleys of
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in West Asia and the Huang He (Yellow
River) in East Asia. As a result of thousands of years of cultural
and political expansion and amalgamation, contemporary India has
come to include many different natural and cultural regions.
The Himalayas (and the nations of Nepal and Bhutan) form India's
northern frontier with China. Pakistan borders India to the west
and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) to the east. Although both
were formerly part of the British Indian Empire, India and Pakistan
became separate countries in 1947 and East Pakistan became independent
Bangladesh in 1971. The boundaries of the Indian polity are not
fully demarcated because of regional ethnic and political disputes
and are the source of occasional tensions.
When the 1991 national census was taken, India's population was
approximately 846.3 million. The annual population growth rate from
1981 to 1991 was 2 percent. Accounting for only 2.4 percent of the
world's landmass, India is home to 16 percent of the world's population.
Every sixth person in the world in the early 1990s was an Indian.
It is generally assumed that India's population will surpass the
1 billion mark some time before the next census in 2001. In July
1995, the population was estimated at 936.5 million.
Some 38 percent of all Indians were officially listed as living
below the poverty line in fiscal year 1991. This number represented
an increase from the low mark of 26 percent in FY 1989, but the
rise was believed to be only temporary by some observers. Although
government-sponsored health clinics are widely available in the
mid-1990s, their emphasis is on curative techniques rather than
preventive medicine. However, the lack of such basic amenities as
safe, potable water for much of the population is indicative of
the severity of health problems. This situation has traditionally
led most Indians to have large families as their only form of insurance
against sickness and for their care in old age. Although family
planning programs are becoming integrated with the programs of urban
and rural health clinics, no official birth control programs have
widespread support. The severity of the acquired immune deficiency
syndrome (AIDS) epidemic in India has become increasingly apparent
to health specialists, but local awareness of the causes of and
ways to prevent the spread of AIDS is growing slowly.
Although many public schools are inadequate, improvements to the
education system overall have been substantial since 1947. In the
mid-1990s, however, only about 50 percent of children between the
ages of six and fourteen are enrolled in schools. The goal of compulsory
and free primary and middle school education is embodied in the
Indian constitution but has been elusive. The National Policy on
Education of 1986 sought to institutionalize universal primary education
by setting 1990 as a target date for the education of all children
up to eleven years of age. The ability of India's education system
to meet this goal has been constrained by lack of adequate financial
resources. Important achievements have been made, however, with
implementation of the nonformal education system and adult education
programs. Whereas public education is generally below standard,
education standards in private schools are very high. There also
are high standards among the elite institutions in the higher education
system.
Data as of September 1995
India
Geography
Principal Regions
India's total land mass is 2,973,190 square kilometers and is divided
into three main geological regions: the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the
Himalayas, and the Peninsula region . The Indo-Gangetic Plain and
those portions of the Himalayas within India are collectively known
as North India. South India consists of the peninsular region, often
termed simply the Peninsula. On the basis of its physiography, India
is divided into ten regions: the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the northern
mountains of the Himalayas, the Central Highlands, the Deccan or
Peninsular Plateau, the East Coast (Coromandel Coast in the south),
the West Coast (Konkan, Kankara, and Malabar coasts), the Great
Indian Desert (a geographic feature known as the Thar Desert in
Pakistan) and the Rann of Kutch, the valley of the Brahmaputra in
Assam, the northeastern hill ranges surrounding the Assam Valley,
and the islands of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
Data as of September 1995
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