Welcome To India

The South Asian country of India includes a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, and it is a land of great contrasts in geography. The barren, snow-capped Himalaya, the world's tallest mountain system, rises along its northern border. South of the Himalaya, the low, fertile Ganges Plain is India's most populous region. The Great Indian Desert lies in the west, but eastern India receives some of the highest rainfall in the world during the monsoon season (June to October). India is second only to China in country population but India is growing faster (by some 17 million a year) and may surpass China by 2030. Although 81 percent of the people are Hindu, India also has more than 138 million Muslims—one of the world's largest Muslim populations.

Hindu culture evolved out of the mingling of indigenous Dravidian peoples and Aryan-speaking nomads who arrived from Central Asia in 1500 B.C. Islam spread across the subcontinent starting in the eighth century A.D. From the 17th century to the mid-20th century India was the pride of the British Empire. Guided by Mahatma Gandhi, Indians won nationhood in 1947. From British rule they inherited deep poverty but also parliamentary government, the English language, and a far-flung rail system, which helped knit the multi-ethnic country into a secular democracy often called the world's largest democracy.