India Quick Facts

Location: 20 North, 77 East. Borders Pakistanm and Burma, Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal
Total Area: 3,287,263 sq km, 7th Largest Country in the world. Slightly bigger than 1/3rd of USA.
Land Area: 2,973,193 sq km
Water Area: 314,070 sq km
Shares a total of : 14,103 km with neighbour countries. Bangladesh 4,053 km, Bhutan 605 km, Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km, Pakistan 2,912 km
Has a Coastline: 7,000 km
Climate: Is very varied, from tropical monsoon climate in the south to temperate in the north
Terrain: Himalayas in north, Deccan Plateau (upland plains) in the south, flat to rolling plains along the Ganges river, deserts in west.
Lowest point is 0m in the Indian Ocean and the highest point is Mt. Kanchenjunga at 8598 m.
Natural Resources: Fourth largest reserve of coal in the world, iron ore, manganese, bauxite, mica, chromite, titanium ore, natural gas, petroleum, limestone and arable land
Land use: 48.8% of the land is arable. Permanent crops are on 2.8% of the land. Irrigated land includes 560 sq. Km and has a total of 1900 cu Km of renewable water resources.
Natural disasters include flash floods, droughts, destructive floods during monsoon rains, earth quakes and thunderstorms.
Environmental Issues include over grazing, deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, air pollution from industrial effluents and vehicle emissions, water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides. Tap water is not potable throughout the country. Natural resources under a huge strain due to population overgrowth.
As per July 2009 estimate, India's population is the second largest in the world with 1.16 Billion people. 30.5% are 0-14 years old (187 million males, 165 million females). 64.3% are 15-64 years old (384 million males, 360 million females). and 5.2% are above 65 years old (28 million males, 31 million females)
Median age is 25.3 with male median being 24.9 and female median being 25.8 years. Population growth rate is 1.4% with 21.72 births/ 1000 people and 7.6 deaths /1000 people. 29% of the population lies in urban areas and urbanization is happeing at the annual rate of 2.4%.
Infant Mortality rate is 50.8 deaths / 1000 live births.    
total: 50.78 deaths/1,000 live births
Life expectancy is 66.09 years with average males living 65.13 years and females liing 67.17 years.
country comparison to the world: 161
Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3%
Religions: Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%
Languages: Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9%

English is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication. Hindi is the most widely spoken language and primary tongue of 41% of the people. There are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit

Literacy is 61% with 73.4% males and 47.8% females being literate. Educational expenditure is 3.2% of GDP. Total years spent in schooling is on an average 10 years. Males 11 and females 9 years.