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Worldfacts
India: Geography
- Location
- Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan
- Geographic coordinates
- 20 00 N, 77 00 E
- Map references
-
Asia — JPG 135Kb or PDF 535Kb
- Area
- total: 3,287,590 sq km
land: 2,973,190 sq km
water: 314,400
sq km
- Area - comparative
- slightly more than one-third the size of the US
- Land boundaries
- total: 14,103 km
border countries: Bangladesh 4,053 km, Bhutan 605 km,
Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km, Pakistan 2,912 km
- Coastline
- 7,000 km
- Maritime claims - as described in UNCLOS 1982 (see Notes and Definitions)
- territorial sea: 12 NM
continental shelf: 200 NM or to the edge of the
continental margin
contiguous zone: 24 NM
exclusive economic zone:
200 NM
- Climate
- varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north
- Terrain
- upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in
west, Himalayas in north
- Elevation extremes
- lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m
highest point: Kanchenjunga 8,598 m
- Natural resources
- coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium
ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone, arable land
- Land use
- arable land: 54.35%
permanent crops: 2.66%
other: 42.99%
(1998 est.)
- Irrigated land
- 590,000 sq km (1998 est.)
- Natural hazards
- droughts; flash floods, as well as widespread and destructive flooding from monsoonal rains;
severe thunderstorms; earthquakes
- Environment - current issues
- deforestation; soil erosion; overgrazing; 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; huge and growing population is
overstraining natural resources
- Environment - international agreements
- party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources,
Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol,
Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law
of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94,
Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
- Geography - note
- dominates South Asian subcontinent; near important Indian Ocean trade routes
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