India is situated north of the equator between 8°4' north to 37°6' north latitude and 68°7' east to 97°25' east longitude. It is the seventh-largest country in the world, with a total area of 3,287,263 square kilometres (1,269,219 sq mi). India measures 3,214 km (1,997 mi) from north to south and 2,933 km (1,822 mi) from east to west. It has a land frontier of 15,200 km (9,445 mi) and a coastline of 7,516.6 km (4,671 mi).
Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. The term has since come to encompass a larger area that includes the India-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistan-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract.
The Sino–Indian War, also known as the China–India War or the Indo–China War, was an armed conflict between China and India that took place from October to November 1962. It was a military escalation of the Sino–Indian border dispute. Fighting occurred along India's border with China, in India's North-East Frontier Agency east of Bhutan, and in Aksai Chin west of Nepal.
The Himalayas, or Himalaya is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 peaks exceeding elevations of 7,200 m (23,600 ft) above sea level lie in the Himalayas.
The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth.
A subregion is a part of a larger geographical region or continent. Cardinal directions are commonly used to define subregions. There are many criteria for creating systems of subregions; this article is focusing on the United Nations geoscheme, which is a changing, constantly updated, UN tool based on specific political geography and demography considerations relevant in UN statistics.
The Siliguri Corridor, also known as the Chicken's Neck, is a stretch of land around the city of Siliguri in West Bengal, India. 20–22 kilometres (12–14 mi) at the narrowest section, this geo-political and geo-economical corridor connects the seven states of northeast India to the rest of the India. The countries of Nepal and Bangladesh lie on each side of the corridor and the Kingdom of Bhutan lies at the northern end of the corridor. The Kingdom of Sikkim formerly lay on the northern side of the corridor, until its merging with India in 1975.
The Himalayan black bear is a subspecies of the Asian black bear. It is distinguished from U. t. thibetanus by its longer, thicker fur and smaller, whiter chest mark. The species is considered an ecological indicator and a keystone species of the environment. The species plays a vital role as a primary seed disperser in maintaining the stability of the ecosystem. On average, they measure from 56 to 65 inches nose to tail and weigh from 200 to 265 pounds, though they may weigh as much as 400 pounds in the fall, when they are fattening up for hibernation.
The Chumbi Valley, called Dromo or Tromo in Tibetan, is a valley in the Himalayas that projects southwards from the Tibetan plateau, intervening between Sikkim and Bhutan. It is coextensive with the administrative unit Yadong County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The Chumbi Valley is connected to Sikkim to the southwest via the mountain passes of Nathu La and Jelep La.
In international relations, a frozen conflict is a situation in which active armed conflict has been brought to an end, but no peace treaty or other political framework resolves the conflict to the satisfaction of the combatants. Therefore, legally the conflict can start again at any moment, creating an environment of insecurity and instability.
Indosphere is a term coined by the linguist James Matisoff for areas of Indian linguistic influence in the neighboring Southern Asian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian regions. It is commonly used in areal linguistics in contrast with the Sinophone languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area of the Sinosphere. Notably, unlike terms such as Lusophone or Francophone that refer to the multinational spread and influence of a single language with multiple dialects, this term refers to all languages that are considered to originate in India, of which there are 22 recognised languages alone across several major language families, including Indo-European and Dravidian. It considers these collectively in regards to the influence of these languages on the languages of other countries, rather than from the perspective of the spread of the language only.
The Indian Himalayan Region is the section of the Himalayas within the Republic of India, spanning thirteen Indian states and union territories, namely Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, West Bengal, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh. The region is responsible for providing water to a large part of the Indian subcontinent and contains various flora and fauna.
Gilgit-Baltistan, formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory and consists of the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and between India and China since 1959. It borders Azad Kashmir to the south, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the north, the Xinjiang region of China to the east and northeast, and the Indian-administered union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to the southeast.
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia, mostly situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geographically, it spans the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, the British Indian Ocean Territory, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Although the terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are often used interchangeably to denote the region, the geopolitical term of South Asia frequently includes Afghanistan, which is not considered a part of the subcontinent, while excluding the British Indian Ocean Territory which is geologically associated with the subcontinent.
There are several disputed territories of India. A territorial dispute is a disagreement over the possession or control of land between two or more states or over the possession or control of land by a new state and occupying power after it has conquered the land from a former state no longer currently recognized by the new state.
Settler colonialism is a logic and structure of displacement by settlers, using colonial rule, over an environment for replacing it and its indigenous peoples with settlements and the society of the settlers.
The Ardagh–Johnson Line is the northeastern boundary of Kashmir drawn by surveyor William Johnson and recommended by John Charles Ardagh as the official boundary of India. It abuts China's Xinjiang and Tibet autonomous regions.
Doklam, called Donglang by China, is an area in Chumbi Valley with a high plateau and a valley, lying between China's Yadong County to the north, Bhutan's Ha District to the east and India's Sikkim state to the west. Since the 1960s, China and Bhutan have disputed sovereignty over the Doklam area. The dispute has not been resolved despite several rounds of border negotiations between Bhutan and China. The area is of strategic importance to all three countries.
The Warwan Valley is a Himalayan sub-valley and a tehsil in Kishtwar District in the Jammu division in union territory of Jammu and Kashmir in India. The Valley lies 68 kilometres (42 mi) northeast of Kishtwar and 150 kilometres (93 mi) from Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir.
Brokpa, Drokpa, Dard and Shin is a category of Scheduled Tribes under the Indian constitution.
