LOCATION

INDIA — SIZE AND LOCATION

India is an ancient civilisation but now it is a developing nation. It has shown remarkable progress in various fields.

Location

• India lies entirely in the Northern Hemisphere.
• India’s mainland extends between  latitudes, and  longitudes.
• The Tropic of Cancer  divides India into two almost equal parts.
• The island groups of Lakshadweep and Andman & Nicobar are also part of India.

Size

• Covering an area of 3.28 million square kilometres, India’s total area is 2.4% of the total geographical area of the world.
• India is the world’s seventh largest country with a land boundary of about 15,200 km, with total length of the coastline being 7,516.6 km.
• India’s east-west extent appears to be smaller than the north-south extent.
• India’s latitudinal and longitudinal extent is about 30 degrees.
• India’s standard time is based on 82.30 degrees E meridian, which passes near Mirzapur in UP.
• Latitudinal extent influences duration of the day and night.

India and the World

• The Indian landmass is centrally located between West and East Asia.
• The trans Indian ocean routes connect countries in the west and counties in the east.
• India’s protruding Deccan Peninsula helped India to establish close contacts with West Asia, Africa and Europe, South-east and East Asia.
• India’s contacts with the world via land routes are much more than her maritime contacts.
• India is the only nation which has a ocean named after it.
• India has contributed a lot to the world in forms of ideas, philosophies (Upanishads, Ramayana, Panchtantra) and mathematics (Indian numerals and decimal system).
• In exchange, India’s architecture was influenced by Greek sculpture and architectural styles from West Asia.