India: Regions, Cities & Travel Guide

What is India known for?

India is known for one of the world's great ancient civilisations, once called the golden bird for its wealth. Its languages number in the many, and its religions, cooking and architecture vary from region to region across South Asia. Depth defines the place.

Travellers come for temples and forts raised long ago and still standing, for food that shifts every few hundred miles, and for coasts that run from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. The mountains to the north rank among the highest on earth.

Where is India?

India occupies most of South Asia, a broad peninsula tapering south into the Indian Ocean. The Arabian Sea washes its southwest and the Bay of Bengal its southeast, so water frames the country on three sides. The sea is never far in the south.

Inland, its land borders run to Pakistan in the west, to China, Nepal and Bhutan across the mountains of the north, and to Bangladesh and Myanmar in the east. These frontiers stretch for thousands of miles across desert, plain and high pass. Offshore, India lies near Sri Lanka and the Maldives, low in the Indian Ocean to the south.

Its Andaman and Nicobar Islands reach far out toward Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia, sharing a maritime border with those distant coasts across the eastern water. Warm currents wrap the long shoreline on every side. From the high mountains of the north the land falls through wide plains toward the coasts.

Distances are immense. Few countries pack so many landscapes between a single ocean and a single mountain wall in one span. The peninsula narrows steadily toward Sri Lanka and the open ocean beyond.

What is the history of India?

India carries one of the longest continuous records of civilisation on earth, reaching back millennia. Cities, temples and forts raised in antiquity still stand across the land, the work of successive kingdoms and empires. The past is everywhere here.

Trade in spices, textiles and gems made the country famous, and older writers called it the golden bird for its wealth. Waves of rulers and faiths crossed South Asia over the centuries, each leaving behind buildings, languages, customs, and new ways of worship. Ports on the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal linked the country to distant markets by sea.

In the modern era India came under colonial rule before winning its independence in 1947. It then adopted a republican constitution and became a large democracy. New institutions of state took shape in the years that followed.

Independence reshaped the nation. Cities that had grown for centuries became the seats of the new republic and its states. The monuments of earlier ages, built long before, remain intact and in use, tying the modern country to the deep past that shaped it across South Asia.

What is India like?

India is a country of many peoples, faiths and tongues, layered together over a long history across South Asia. Dozens of major languages are spoken, and scripts change from region to region. Variety is the rule.

Its religions run deep and diverse, shaping festivals, temples and daily ritual in every corner of the land. Dress, calendar and custom vary as widely as speech. Food shifts with the map, from the coasts of the Arabian Sea to the plains inland, changing spice and staple every few hundred miles.

Architecture records the same range, in temples, mosques, forts, and palaces built across the centuries and still standing. Craft traditions in textile, metal and stone pass down through families. Markets sell block-printed cloth, brasswork and hand-carved wood side by side.

The making never stops. Music, dance and cinema carry the culture far beyond South Asia, across the Indian Ocean and its diaspora, while the old stories endure at home. Cinema in many languages draws vast audiences across the country.

Few places hold such variety of custom and belief within one set of borders, from the Bay of Bengal to the northern mountains.

What is the climate of India?

India has a broadly tropical climate, ruled by the monsoon that sweeps in off the surrounding seas. Warm, wet air rides up from the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal in the rainy season, then retreats to leave drier months behind. The rains set the calendar.

Higher ground in the north stays cooler, with snow on the great mountains, while the coasts along the Indian Ocean run hot and humid for much of the year.

How do you get to India?

Most travellers reach India by air, landing at the big cities before spreading out across the country. By sea, the approaches cross the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal to its long coastline. The distances are large.

Overland routes run from neighbours like Nepal and Bangladesh, while the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are reached only by sea or air far out in the Indian Ocean.