India, officially known as the Republic of India is the seventh biggest country
in the world and is located in South Asia. The name India is derived from the
word, 'Indus' which is derived from the ancient Persian word 'Hindu', from Sanskrit
'Sindhu' and is associated with the historic name for the River Indus. Other
names that India is known by include Hindustan which is the Persian word for
'Land of the Hindus' and Bharat. It is the world's second most populous country
and its largest democracy. India shares its borders with Pakistan, China, Nepal,
Bhutan, Bangladesh and Burma and is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the South,
Arabian Sea in the north and Bay of Bengal in the East. India is a multilingual
and multi-ethnic society. Four of the world's major religions including Hinduism,
Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here. It is also home to Muslims, Christians
and Zorastrians.
India boasts of diverse natural terrain. From the Himalayas in the north to the Deccan plateau in the south, the country is home to mountains, plateaus, coastal ranges, desert, rivers and lakes. India's coast is 7,517 kilometers (4,671 mi) long. The major rivers include the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna, Kaveri, Narmada and Tapti. India has two archipelagoes, the Lakshadweep Islands in India's south western coast and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a volcanic chain of islands in the Andaman Sea. The four major climatic conditions that the country experiences are tropical wet, tropical dry, sub-tropical humid and montane.