Aryan tribes from the northwest infiltrated onto the Indian subcontinent about 1500 B.C.; their merger with the earlier Dravidian inhabitants created the classical Indian culture. The Maurya Empire of the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. - which reached its zenith under ASHOKA - united much of South Asia.

The Golden Age ushered in by the Gupta dynasty (4th to 6th centuries A.D.) saw a flowering of Indian science, art, and culture. Arab incursions starting in the 8th century and Turkic in the 12th were followed by those of European traders, beginning in the late 15th century.

By the 19th century, Britain had assumed political control of virtually all Indian lands. Indian armed forces in the British army played a vital role in both World Wars. Nonviolent resistance to British colonialism led by Mohandas GANDHI and Jawaharlal NEHRU brought independence in 1947. The subcontinent was divided into the secular state of India and the smaller Muslim state of Pakistan. A third war between the two countries in 1971 resulted in East Pakistan becoming the separate nation of Bangladesh.

India's nuclear weapons testing in 1998 caused Pakistan to conduct its own tests that same year. The dispute between the countries over the state of Kashmir is ongoing, but discussions and confidence-building measures have led to decreased tensions since 2002. Despite impressive gains in economic investment and output, India faces pressing problems such as significant overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife.

Capital: New Delhi

Currency: Indian rupee (INR)

India is located in Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. It lies to the southeast of Pakistan, with Burma to the east and Bhutan, Nepal, and China to the north. Bangladesh is surrounded by India's eastern portion, and the island nation of Sri Lanka lies off the southern coast.

The country is comprised of 314,400 square kilometers of water and 2,973,190 square kilometers of land, for a total area of 3,287,590 square kilometers -- slightly more than 1/3 the size of the USA.

The climate of India varies from tropical monsoon in the south to temperate in the north.

India boasts many natural resources including coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone, and arable land.

India dominates the South Asian subcontinent, lying near important Indian Ocean trade routes. Kanchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world, lies on India's border with Nepal (within the Himalayas).

72% of Indians are of the Indo-Aryan ethnic group, with Dravidians (25%) and other ethnicities comprising the balance.

India is 80.5% Hindu, 13.4% Mulsim, 2.3% Christian, and 1.9% Sikh.

English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication. Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people.

There are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language.

India's flag has three equal horizontal bands of saffron (subdued orange) (top), white, and green.

It has a blue chakra (24-spoked wheel) centered in the white band.

This arrangement is similar to the flag of Niger, which has a small orange disk centered in the white band.