www.finalcommission.org.uk

Location

Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan

Area

3,287,590 sq km, slightly more than one-third the size of the US

Population

1 billion[1,049,700,118 (July 2003 est.)]

Religions

Hindu 81.3%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5% (2000)

Languages

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;

States

28 States & Union Territories