India’s Amazing Diversity !

India is a country in southern Asia that boasts some of the most diverse and fascinating culture in the world. In addition, it is a land if great physical beauty and contrast. In this post we will explore the diversity of language and religion. We will also examine some of the traits that make India so geographically interesting.

The Population of India

India is the second most populous country in the world after China, and currently has about 1,380,000,000 people. That means that more than 1 in 6 people in our world live in India ! It is predicted that India will pass China by the year 2027 in this category.

The population is distributed all around the country with greater density in the northern corridor from Delhi to Kolkata, and in the South. The population density in India is 464 per Km² (1,202 people per mi²). Parts of Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata have more than 20,000 people per square mile ! That may seem like a lot but Manhattan (New York City)has a population density of 66,000 per square mile.

India Population Density Map

The five largest cities in India are listed in the table below. That said, we should note that there are close to 50 cities in India with a population of more than 1,000,000 people ! NOTE: The given populations are for the cities themselves and do not count the entire metropolitan area.

Top 5 Largest Cities in India

The Language Diversity in India

I don’t think any country in the world comes close to India in terms of language diversity. Spain and Switzerland have four official languages each. Zimbabwe has 16. (Click on the links to learn about these countries on Maps4Kids.com).

But India has over 400 living languages, and over 2,000 dialects ! 22 of the languages are considered official languages. While Hindi is the most commonly spoken language in India, large populations within India speak other languages and even have other alphabets. Over 30 different languages in India have more than 1,000,000 speakers. This is truly incredible. See the top of the list in the chart below.

Wikipedia Says : “Most Indians speak a language belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (c. 77%), the Dravidian (c. 20.61%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (c. 1.2%), or the Sino-Tibetan (c. 0.8%) “

The diversity of the Indian language alphabets is even more intriguing. Northern languages like Hindi and Bengali seem to have more of a likeness to Sanskrit writing, many having a top “line” across words and sentences. Some of the alphabets of southern languages (Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu have a much rounder look to their letters. Still others like Urdu using Perso-Arabic script which reads right to left. NOTE: Persian and Arabic also vary by 2-3 letters, and the languages are not even in the same language family).

In India, over 15% of the people are bilingual and over 7% are considered tri-lingual. Most students also learn English in school from an early age. In some states of India, all instruction is in English in public and private schools.

The three examples in the table below represent the value text on the Indian 100 Rupee notes (paper money). But they are only three of the seventeen languages represented on the notes !! See the image below the table. How cool is that !

The Diversity of Religion in India

While languages show fascinating diversity of Indian culture, we shouldn’t overlook the religious diversity. Four major religions of the world started in India ! Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism (Dharmic religions) all started in India. 84% of all people in India belong to one of these four religions. The other main religion of India is Islam, which represents about 14% of the population. Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and a host of other smaller religions make up the remaining 2%.

The map clearly shows that Hinduism dominates most of the administrative districts of India. However, we also see the strong presence of Sikh, Buddhist and Muslim populations in the north and east sections of the country.

This slideshow gives four examples of major religious sites in India.

Bonus Cultural Fact

Chess

One of the most interesting cultural gifts that India has given the world is the game of Chess ! Not many people know that more than 1,500 years ago, the game of Chaturanga was created, likely in the Gupta Empire of northern India. The groups of pieces represent the four areas of the military – infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry. These evolved into what we now call pawns, knights, bishops and rooks. As the game developed and spread, first to Persia, players would call out “Shah !” when attacking the opposing King. Shah is the Persian word for King. They would also say “Shāh Māt!” when they put the King into a position from which he could no longer escape. In English, the modern term is “Checkmate”. the German work is “Schachmat” where we can see the Indo-Aryan roots of German coming through.

People around the world now play chess with some rising to the rank of Grandmaster and World Champion. The current World Champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who became champion at the very young age of 20 !

The Geography of India

India has extremely diverse aspects of physical and human Geography. We will probably cover more of it in a future post. However, it would be good to touch on a few aspects of this fascinating country.

For starters, India is a very large country. India measures 3,214 km (1,997 mi) from north to south and 2,933 km (1,822 mi) from east to west. It has 15,200 km (9,445 mi) of land border and 7,516.6 km (4,671 mi) of coastline. The Ganges river is the longest in India with a length of over 2,500 km (or 1,500 miles).

There are great extremes of topography and weather throughout India. In the north, the Himalaya Mountains rise up to over 28,000 feet ! Mount Kangchenjunga, at 8,586 m (28,169 ft) , is the highest peak – only 1,000 feet shorter than Mount Everest. Temperatures in that alpine region, and in the region of Kashmir, often go below -20C. In the south it can get very hot with many areas recording temperatures near 50C (or 120F).

There are great plains and forest, and in the southwest of the country, beautiful beaches are the hallmark of the area in and around Goa. The atolls of Lakshwadeep and the Andaman Islands offer stunning tropical beaches.