Anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Sedentariness began in South Asia around 7000 BCE; by 4500 BCE, settled life had spread, and gradually evolved into the Indus Valley Civilisation, which flourished between 2500 BCE and 1900 BCE in present-day Pakistan and north-western India. Early in the second millennium BCE, persistent drought caused the population of the Indus Valley to scatter from large urban centres to villages. Indo-Aryan tribes moved into the Punjab from Central Asia in several waves of migration. The Vedic Period was marked by the composition of their large collections of hymns (Vedas). The social structure was stratified via the varna system, which persists till this day though highly evolved. The pastoral and nomadic Indo-Aryans spread from the Punjab into the Gangetic plain. Around 600 BCE, a new, interregional culture arose; then, small chieftaincies (janapadas) were consolidated into larger states (mahajanapadas). A second urbanisation took place, which came with the rise of new ascetic movements and religious concepts, including the rise of Jainism and Buddhism. The latter was synthesised with the preexisting religious cultures of the subcontinent, giving rise to Hinduism.
The Indus is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The 3,120 km (1,940 mi) river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, bends sharply to the left after the Nanga Parbat massif, and flows south-by-southwest through Pakistan, before emptying into the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi.
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. Today, the term encompasses 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 history of Pakistan preceding the country's independence in 1947 is shared with that of Afghanistan, India, and Iran. Spanning the northwestern expanse of the Indian subcontinent and the eastern borderlands of the Iranian plateau, the region of present-day Pakistan served both as the fertile ground of a major civilization and as the gateway of South Asia to Central Asia and the Near East.
Punjab is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is specifically located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern-Pakistan and northwestern-India. Punjab's major cities are Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Sialkot, Chandigarh, Shimla, Jalandhar, Patiala, Gurugram, and Bahawalpur.
The Hindu Kush is an 800-kilometre-long (500 mi) mountain range on the Iranian Plateau in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH); to the north, near its northeastern end, the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan near their border.
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area from much of Pakistan, to northeast Afghanistan, and northwestern India. The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.
Leh is a city in the Indian Union territory of Ladakh. It is the largest city and the joint capital of Ladakh. Leh, located in the Leh district, was also the historical capital of the Kingdom of Ladakh. The seat of the kingdom, Leh Palace, the former residence of the royal family of Ladakh, was built in the same style and about the same time as the Potala Palace in Tibet. Since they were both constructed in a similar style and at roughly the same time, the Potala Palace in Tibet and Leh Palace, the royal residence, are frequently contrasted. Leh is at an altitude of 3,524 m (11,562 ft), and is connected via National Highway 1 to Srinagar in the southwest and to Manali in the south via the Leh-Manali Highway.
Hindūstān is the Persian name for India, broadly referring to the Indian subcontinent. Being the Iranic cognate of the Indic word Sindhu, it originally referred to the land of lower Indus basin. Later, the term referred to the Indo-Gangetic plain, and became the classical name of the region in Hindi-Urdu. It finally referred to the entire subcontinent since the early modern period. Since the Partition of India in 1947, Hindustan continues to be used to the present day as a historic name for the Republic of India.
The culture of Asia encompasses the collective and diverse customs and traditions of art, architecture, music, literature, lifestyle, philosophy, food, politics and religion that have been practiced and maintained by the numerous ethnic groups of the continent of Asia since prehistory. Identification of a specific culture of Asia or universal elements among the colossal diversity that has emanated from multiple cultural spheres and three of the four ancient River valley civilizations is complicated. However, the continent is commonly divided into six geographic sub-regions, that are characterized by perceivable commonalities, like culture, religion, language and relative ethnic homogeneity. These regions are Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and West Asia.
Kargil or Kargyil is a town in Indian-administered Ladakh in the neighbouring disputed Kashmir region. It is the joint capital of Ladakh, an Indian-administered union territory in the Trans-Himalaya. It is also the administrative capital of the Kargil district. It is the second-largest urban centre in Ladakh after Leh. Kargil is located 204 kilometres (127 mi) east of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, and 234 kilometres (145 mi) to the west of Leh. It is situated on the bank of the Suru River near its confluence with the Wakha river, the latter providing the most accessible route to Leh.
The history of Sindh refers to the history of the Pakistani province of Sindh, as well as neighboring regions that periodically came under its sway.
Indian people or Indians are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at 1.4 billion people. According to UN forecasts, India overtook China as the world's most populous country by the end of April 2023, containing 17.50 percent of the global population. In addition to the Indian population, the Indian overseas diaspora also boasts large numbers, particularly in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and the Western world.
Buddhism in Pakistan took root in the third century BCE under the Mauryan king Ashoka. The Major Rock Edicts of Ashoka inscribed on rock boulders in Mansehra and Shahbaz Garhi written in the Kharosthi script recording aspects of the emperor's dharma or righteous law represent some of the earliest evidence of deciphered writing in South Asia, dating to middle of the third century BCE. The Indo-Greek king Menander embraced Buddhism as attested in the Milinda Panha, which dates from sometime between 100 BC and 200 AD, following a dialogue with the monk Nāgasena in Sagala, present-day Sialkot.
The Shina or Gilgitis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group primarily residing in Gilgit–Baltistan and Indus Kohistan in Pakistan, as well as in the Dras Valley and Kishenganga Valley (Gurez) in the northern region of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh in India. They speak an Indo-Aryan language, called Shina and their geographic area of predominance is referred to as Shenaki.
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. Geopolitically, it spans major landmasses from the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The neighboring geographical regions around the subcontinent include the Tibetan Plateau to the north, the Indochinese Peninsula to the east, the Iranian Plateau to the west, and the Indian Ocean to the south. 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 part of the subcontinent.
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. As commonly conceptualized, the modern states of South Asia include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. South Asia borders East Asia to the northeast, Central Asia to the northwest, West Asia to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamir Mountains in the north.
South Asian culture, also known as Desi culture, is a mixture of several cultures in and around the Indian subcontinent. Ancient South Asian culture was primarily based in Hinduism, which itself formed as a mixture of Vedic religion and indigenous traditions, and later Buddhist influences. From the medieval era onwards, influences from the Muslim world and then Europe also became prevalent.
Islam is the second-largest religion in South Asia, with more than 640 million Muslims living there, forming about one-third of the region's population. Islam first spread along the coastal regions of the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka, almost as soon as it started in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Arab traders brought it to South Asia. South Asia has the largest population of Muslims in the world, with about one-third of all Muslims living here. Islam is the dominant religion in half of the South Asian countries. It is the second largest religion in India and third largest in Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Northwestern South Asia is a geographical area in South Asia. It includes the modern-day Afghanistan, Aksai Chin (China), north-western India, and Pakistan.
