Discover Incredible India: Travel Guide & Tourism Info

India’s population grew from 361 million in 1951 to over 1.4 billion in 2023. A nationalist movement emerged in India, the first in the non-European British Empire and an influence on other nationalist movements. In south India, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture. In the 1st millennium, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became established on India’s southern and western coasts.

Earnest attempts have been made to instill a spirit of nationhood in so varied a population, but tensions between neighboring groups have remained and at times have resulted in outbreaks of violence. Religious minorities, including Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains, still account for a significant proportion of the population. As a result of the Indian Independence Movement, British rule came to an end on August 14-15, 1947, celebrated annually as Independence Day. Especially important was the coming of Islam, brought from the northwest by Arab, Turkish, Persian, and other raiders beginning early in the 8th century ce. Throughout its history, India was intermittently disturbed by incursions from beyond its northern mountain wall. It is known from archaeological evidence that a highly sophisticated urbanized culture—the Indus civilization—dominated the northwestern part of the subcontinent from about 2600 to 2000 bce.

Only the government can use this emblem, according to the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005. The national emblem of India shows four lions standing back-to-back. In 2010, the Indian Armed Forces had 1.32 million active personnel, making it one of the largest militaries in the world. The Indian Armed Forces is the country’s military.

How many people live in India?

India’s foreign exchange remittances of US$100 billion in 2022, highest in the world, were contributed to its economy by 32 million Indians working in foreign countries. An acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the nation to liberalise its economy; since then, it has moved increasingly towards a free-market system by emphasising both foreign trade and direct investment inflows. The vast majority of Indians fall into the global low-income group based on average daily income. With an average annual GDP growth rate of 5.8% over the past two decades, and reaching 6.1% during 2011–2012, India is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. In 2008, a civilian nuclear agreement was signed between India and the United States. India maintains a “no first use” nuclear policy and is developing a nuclear triad capability as a part of its “Minimum Credible Deterrence” doctrine.

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In the eighth century Islam came to India for the first time and by the eleventh century had firmly established itself in India as a political force. The fifth century saw the unification of India under Ashoka, who had converted to Buddhism, and it is in his reign that Buddhism spread in many parts of Asia. India’s social, economic, and cultural configurations are the products of a long process of regional expansion. Kochi Biennale is India’s largest contemporary art exhibition, held every two years in the city. Rameshwaram is home to the world’s second-largest and India’s first-ever sea bridge, the Pamban Bridge. The historic Ashokan pillar originally erected in Sarnath was also the source of inspiration for the national emblem of India.

It was originally used for the Indian subcontinent and the areas to its east. The Indo-Aryan languages replaced the Dravidian languages in the northern and western regions of India. It has the Indian Ocean to the west, the Arabian Sea in the southwest, the Bay of Bengal in the southeast, and the Himalayas up north.

By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest. Modern humans arrived on the Bet365 Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world’s most populous democracy.

  • India has been a federal republic since 1950, governed through a democratic parliamentary system.
  • Indian timeline takes us on a journey of the history of the subcontinent.
  • Hindustan (ɦɪndʊˈstaːn ⓘ) is a Middle Persian name for India that became popular by the 13th century, and was used widely since the era of the Mughal Empire.
  • As the empire disintegrated, many among these elites were able to seek and control their own affairs.

This forced the national parties to create coalition governments. It has six national parties, for example the Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It is the largest democracy in the world by the number of people.

India also fought a war to capture Goa, a Portuguese-built port and a city that was not a part of India until 1961. After 1947, India had a socialist planned economy. The first official leader (Prime Minister) of India was Jawaharlal Nehru. Every year, on this day, Indians celebrate Republic Day. India’s constitution was founded on 26 January 1950. On 15 August 1947, India peacefully became free and independent from the British Empire.

The Congress is considered the ideological centre in Indian political culture; the BJP is right-wing. India hosts more than five hundred wildlife sanctuaries and eighteen biosphere reserves, four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; its eighty-nine wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial wilderness; the Forest Conservation Act was enacted in 1980 and amendments added in 1988. In response, the system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was expanded substantially. The pervasive and ecologically devastating human encroachment of recent decades has critically endangered Indian wildlife. Critically endangered species include the gharial, a crocodilian; the great Indian bustard; and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which has become nearly extinct by having ingested the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.