| Country (long form) |
Republic of India |
| Capital |
New Delhi |
| Total Area |
1,269,345.60 sq mi
3,287,590.00 sq km
(slightly more than one-third the size of the US) |
| Population |
1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.) |
| Estimated Population in 2050 |
1,619,582,271 |
| Languages |
English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, Hindi the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people, Bengali (official), Telugu (official), Marathi (official), Tamil (official), Urdu (official), Gujarati (official), Malayalam (official), Kannada (official), Oriya (official), Punjabi (official), Assamese (official), Kashmiri (official), Sindhi (official), Sanskrit (official), Hindustani (a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India)
note: 24 languages each spoken by a million or more persons; numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible |
| Literacy |
52.0% total, 65.5% male, 37.7% female (1995 est.) |
| Religions |
Hindu 81.3%, Muslim 12%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5% (2000) |
| Life Expectancy |
62.22 male, 63.53 female (2001 est.) |
| Government Type |
federal republic |
| Currency |
1 Indian rupee (Re) = 100 paise |
| GDP (per capita) |
$2,200 (2000 est.) |
| Industry |
textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software |
| Agriculture |
rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish |
| Arable Land |
56% |
| Natural Resources |
coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone, arable land |
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