Introduction

Location of Size :
     India lies in the south of Asia, at the head of the Indian Ocean between 8° 4' and 37° 6' North latitudes and 68° 7' E and 97° 25' E longitudes. It lies in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. The Tropic of Cancer passes nearly midway across India and               divides it into two parts – the Northern India and the Deccan and Peninsular India. India is bounded by the great Himalayas in the north, the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and Indian Ocean in the south.

    With a total land area of 3.3 million sq km, India accounts for about 2.4 percent of the total land area of the world. It has a land frontier of  15,200 km and a coastline of 7,516.5 km of which, 5,423 km belongs to peninsular India, and 2,094 km to the island off      shore. The Andaman and Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal and Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea are parts of India. The north-south extent from Kashmir to Kanyakumari is about 3,200 km, and the east-west extent from Arunachal Pradesh to Kutch is              about 2,900 km. Cape Comorin in Kanyakumari is the southernmost tip of the mainland, while Indira Point in the Andaman and Nicobar island is the farthest point in the south.

    Due to India's great longitudinal extent there would be a wide difference in its local time from west to east. To avoid any confusion with respect to time at different places in India, the centrally located longitude 82.5° E  has been selected as the standard                meridian for the whole country. Nepal and Sri Lanka also use this meridian for their standard time. The local time of the standard meridian is called the Indian Standard Time (IST).

India's Neighbours
    India has common land boundaries with seven countries-Afghanistan and Pakistan to the north-west, China. Nepal and Bhutan to the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. To the south, across the sea lies the island of Sri Lanka separated by the      Palk Strait and the Maldives. The landmass comprising Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives is isolated in a remarkable way from the rest of Asia forming a sub-division of the continent. This landmass is                known as the Indian subcontinent.

Physical Features
    The great landmass thus is divided into six major physical division : The Great Mountain Wall bordering the north, The Great Northern Plains stretching across the central and eastern part, The Great Indian Desert lying in the west, The Great Peninsular              Plateau spreading across southern India, The Coastal Plains bordering it and the chain of island off the coast.