India (
/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Hindi: भारत गणराज्य Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also Official names of India), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.18 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world.[16][17] Mainland India is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal on the east; and it is bordered by Pakistan to the west;[note] China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; andBangladesh and Burma to the east. India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, its Andaman and Nicobar Islands are also in the vicinity of the Indonesianisland of Sumatra in the Andaman Sea, and in the Andaman Sea India also shares a maritime border with Thailand.[18] India has a coastline of 7,517 kilometres (4,700 mi).[19]
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history.[20] Four major religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhismoriginated here, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-nineteenth century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by widespread non-violent resistance.[21]
India is a federal constitutional republic with a parliamentary democracy consisting of 28 states and seven union territories. A pluralistic, multilingual and multiethnic society, India is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The Indian economy is the world's eleventh largest economy by nominal GDP and the fourth largest by purchasing power parity. Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1991, India has become one of the fastest growing major economies in the world;[22] however, it still suffers from poverty,[23] illiteracy,[24] corruption,[25] disease,[26] and malnutrition.[27] India is classified as a newly industrialized country[28][29] and is one of the four BRIC nations. It is anuclear weapons state and has the third-largest standing armed force in the world.[30] while its military expenditure ranks tenth in the world. It is a founding member of the United Nations, the East Asia Summit, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Non-Aligned Movement and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and the G-20 major economies.
