South Asia has a total area of 5.2 million sq.km (2 million sq.mi), which is 10% of the Asian continent.[30] The population of South Asia is estimated to be 2.04 billion[8] or about one-fourth of the world's population, making it both the most populous and the most densely populated geographical region in the world.[31]
In 2022, South Asia had the world's largest populations of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, and Zoroastrians.[32] South Asia alone accounts for 90.47% of Hindus, 95.5% of Sikhs, and 31% of Muslims worldwide, as well as 35 million Christians and 25 million Buddhists.[33][34][35][36]
Various definitions of South Asia, including the definition by the United Nations geoscheme which was created for "statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories."[38]
The geographical extent is not clear cut as systemic and foreign policy orientations of its constituents are quite asymmetrical.[39] Beyond the core territories of the Indian Empire (territories of the British Empire which were under the system of British Raj), there is a high degree of variation as to which other countries are included in South Asia.[40][41][42][43] There is no clear boundary – geographical, geopolitical, socio-cultural, economical, or historical – between South Asia and other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia and West Asia.[44]
The common definition of South Asia is largely inherited from the administrative boundaries of the Indian Empire,[45] with several exceptions. The current territories of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan which were the core territories of the British Empire from 1857 to 1947 also form the core territories of South Asia.[46][47] The mountain countries of Nepal and Bhutan, two independent countries that were not under the British Raj but were protectorates of the Empire,[48] and the island countries of Sri Lanka and the Maldives are generally included.[49] By various definitions based on substantially different reasons, the British Indian Ocean Territory and the Tibet Autonomous Region may be included as well.[50][51][52][53][54][55]Myanmar (Burma), a former British colony and now largely considered a part of Southeast Asia, is also sometimes included.[39][41][56]Afghanistan is also included by some sources.[39][41][57][6]
Organisational definitions
United Nations map of South Asia.[58] However, the United Nations does not endorse any definitions or area boundaries.[note 2]
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), a contiguous block of countries, started in 1985 with seven countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – and admitted Afghanistan as an eighth member in 2007.[59][37] China and Myanmar have also applied for the status of full members of SAARC.[60][61] The South Asia Free Trade Agreement admitted Afghanistan in 2011.[62]
The boundaries of South Asia vary based on how the region is defined. South Asia's northern, eastern, and western boundaries vary based on definitions used, while the Indian Ocean is the southern periphery. Most of this region rests on the Indian Plate and is isolated from the rest of Asia by mountain barriers.[70][71] Much of the region consists of a peninsula in south-central Asia, rather resembling a diamond which is delineated by the Himalayas on the north, the Hindu Kush in the west, and the Arakanese in the east,[72] and which extends southward into the Indian Ocean with the Arabian Sea to the southwest and the Bay of Bengal to the southeast.[73][74]
While South Asia had never been a coherent geopolitical region, it has a distinct geographical identity[56][72]
The terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are sometimes used interchangeably.[49][73][75][76][77] The Indian subcontinent is largely a geological term referring to the land mass that drifted northeastwards from ancient Gondwana, colliding with the Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Palaeocene. This geological region largely includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.[78] Historians Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot state that the term "Indian subcontinent" describes a natural physical landmass in South Asia that has been relatively isolated from the rest of Eurasia.[79]
The use of the term Indian subcontinent began in the British Empire, and has been a term particularly common in its successors.[75] South Asia as the preferred term is particularly common when scholars or officials seek to differentiate this region from East Asia.[80] According to historians Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, the Indian subcontinent has come to be known as South Asia "in more recent and neutral parlance."[76] This "neutral" notion refers to the concerns of Pakistan and Bangladesh, particularly given the recurring conflicts between India and Pakistan, wherein the dominant placement of "India" as a prefix before the subcontinent might offend some political sentiments.[56] However, in Pakistan, the term "South Asia" is considered too India-centric and was banned until 1989 after the death of Zia ul Haq.[81] This region has also been labelled as "India" (in its classical and pre-modern sense) and "Greater India".[56][72]
Akhand Bharat (top-left), the Greater Middle East (top-right), Central Asia and associated neighbouring regions (bottom-left), and East Asia (bottom-right)[b]
According to Robert M. Cutler – a scholar of political science at Carleton University,[82] the terms South Asia, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia are distinct, but the confusion and disagreements have arisen due to the geopolitical movement to enlarge these regions into Greater South Asia, Greater Southwest Asia, and Greater Central Asia. The frontier of Greater South Asia, states Cutler, between 2001 and 2006 has been geopolitically extended to eastern Iran and western Afghanistan in the west, and in the north to northeastern Iran, northern Afghanistan, and southern Uzbekistan.[82]
Identification with a South Asian identity was found to be significantly low among respondents in an older two-year survey across Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.[83]
The history of core South Asia begins with evidence of human activity of Homo sapiens, as long as 75,000 years ago, or with earlier hominids including Homo erectus from about 500,000 years ago.[84] The earliest prehistoric culture have roots in the mesolithic sites as evidenced by the rock paintings of Bhimbetka rock shelters dating to a period of 30,000 BCE or older,[note 3] as well as neolithic times.[note 4]
The Indus Valley civilisation, which spread and flourished in the northwestern part of South Asia from c. 3300 to 1300 BCE in present-day Pakistan, North India, and Afghanistan, was the first major civilisation in South Asia.[85] A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture developed in the Mature Harappan period, from 2600 to 1900 BCE.[86] According to anthropologist Possehl, the Indus Valley civilisation provides a logical, if somewhat arbitrary, starting point for South Asian religions, but these links from the Indus religion to later-day South Asian traditions are subject to scholarly dispute.[87]
Maurya Empire in 250 BCE
The Vedic period, named after the Vedic religion of the Indo-Aryans,[note 5] lasted from c. 1900 to 500 BCE.[89][90] The Indo-Aryans were Indo-European-speaking pastoralists[91] who migrated into north-western India after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization.[88][92] Linguistic and archaeological data show a cultural change after 1500 BCE,[88] with the linguistic and religious data showing links with Indo-European languages and religion.[93] By about 1200 BCE, the Vedic culture and agrarian lifestyle were established in the northwest and northern Gangetic plain of South Asia.[91][94][95] Rudimentary state-forms appeared, of which the Kuru-Pañcāla union was the most influential.[96][97] The first recorded state-level society in South Asia existed around 1000 BCE.[91] In this period, states Samuel, emerged the Brahmana and Aranyaka layers of Vedic texts, which merged into the earliest Upanishads.[98] These texts began to ask the meaning of a ritual, adding increasing levels of philosophical and metaphysical speculation,[98] or "Hindu synthesis".[99]
Increasing urbanisation of South Asia between 800 and 400 BCE, and possibly the spread of urban diseases, contributed to the rise of ascetic movements and of new ideas which challenged the orthodox Brahmanism.[100][failed verification] These ideas led to Sramana movements, of which Mahavira (c. 549–477 BCE), proponent of Jainism, and Buddha (c. 563 – c. 483), founder of Buddhism, was the most prominent icons.[101]
The Greek army led by Alexander the Great stayed in the Hindu Kush region of South Asia for several years and then later moved into the Indus valley region. Later, the Maurya Empire extended over much of South Asia in the 3rd century BCE. Buddhism spread beyond south Asia, through northwest into Central Asia. The Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan and the edicts of Aśoka suggest that the Buddhist monks spread Buddhism (Dharma) in eastern provinces of the Seleucid Empire, and possibly even farther into West Asia.[102][103][104] The Theravada school spread south from India in the 3rd century BCE, to Sri Lanka, later to Southeast Asia.[105] Buddhism, by the last centuries of the 1st millennium BCE, was prominent in the Himalayan region, Gandhara, Hindu Kush region, and Bactria.[106][107][108]
From about 500 BCE through about 300 CE, the Vedic-Brahmanic synthesis or "Hindu synthesis" continued.[99] Classical Hindu and Sramanic (particularly Buddhist) ideas spread within South Asia, as well as outside South Asia.[109][110][111] The Gupta Empire ruled over a large part of the region between the 4th and 7th centuries, a period that saw the construction of major temples, monasteries and universities such as the Nalanda.[112][113][114] During this era, and through the 10th century, numerous cave monasteries and temples such as the Ajanta Caves, Badami cave temples, and Ellora Caves were built in South Asia.[115][116][117]
Outreach of influence of early medieval Chola dynasty
Islam came as a political power in the fringe of South Asia in 8th century CE when the Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh, and Multan in southern Punjab, in modern-day Pakistan.[118] By 962 CE, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in South Asia were under a wave of raids from Muslim armies from Central Asia.[119] Among them was Mahmud of Ghazni, who raided and plundered kingdoms in north India from east of the Indus river to west of Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030.[120] Mahmud of Ghazni raided the treasuries but retracted each time, only extending Islamic rule into western Punjab.[121][122]
Timur defeats the Sultan of Delhi, Nasir-u Din Mehmud, in the winter of 1397–1398
The wave of raids on north Indian and western Indian kingdoms by Muslim warlords continued after Mahmud of Ghazni, plundering and looting these kingdoms.[123] The raids did not establish or extend permanent boundaries of their Islamic kingdoms. The Ghurid Sultan Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad began a systematic war of expansion into North India in 1173.[124] He sought to carve out a principality for himself by expanding the Islamic world,[120][125] and thus laid the foundation for the Muslim kingdom that became the Delhi Sultanate.[120] Some historians chronicle the Delhi Sultanate from 1192 due to the presence and geographical claims of Mu'izz al-Din in South Asia by that time.[126]
The Delhi Sultanate covered varying parts of South Asia and was ruled by a series of dynasties: Mamluk, Khalji, Tughlaq, Sayyid, and Lodi dynasties. Muhammad bin Tughlaq came to power in 1325, launched a war of expansion and the Delhi Sultanate reached it largest geographical reach over the South Asian region during his 26-year rule.[127] A Sunni Sultan, Muhammad bin Tughlaq persecuted non-Muslims such as Hindus, as well as non-Sunni Muslims such as Shia and Mahdi sects.[128][129][130]
Revolts against the Delhi Sultanate sprang up in many parts of South Asia during the 14th century.[citation needed] In the northeast, the Bengal Sultanate became independent in 1346 CE. It remained in power through the early 16th century. The state religion of the sultanate was Islam.[131][132] In South India, the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire came to power in 1336 and persisted until the middle of the 16th century. It was ultimately defeated and destroyed by an alliance of the Muslim Deccan sultanates at the Battle of Talikota.[133][134]
About 1526, the Punjab governor Dawlat Khan Lodī reached out to the Mughal Babur and invited him to attack the Delhi Sultanate. Babur defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi in the Battle of Panipat in 1526. The death of Ibrahim Lodi ended the Delhi Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire replaced it.[135]
The modern history period of South Asia, that is the 16th century onwards, witnessed the establishment of the Mughal Empire, with Sunni Islam theology. The first ruler was Babur had Turco-Mongol roots and his realm included the northwestern and Indo-Gangetic Plain regions of South Asia. Several regions of South Asia were largely under Hindu kings such as those of the Vijayanagara Empire and the Kingdom of Mewar.[136] Parts of modern Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were under local Muslim rulers, namely those of the Deccan sultanates.[137][138]
The Mughal Empire continued its wars of expansion after Babur's death. With the fall of the Rajput kingdoms and Vijayanagara, its boundaries encompassed almost the entirety of the Indian subcontinent.[139] The Mughal Empire was marked by a period of artistic exchanges and a Central Asian and South Asian architecture synthesis, with remarkable buildings such as the Taj Mahal.[140][138][141]
However, this time also marked an extended period of religious persecution.[142] Two of the religious leaders of Sikhism, Guru Arjan, and Guru Tegh Bahadur were arrested under orders of the Mughal emperors after their revolts and were executed when they refused to convert to Islam.[143][144][145] Religious taxes on non-Muslims called jizya were imposed. Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh temples were desecrated. However, not all Muslim rulers persecuted non-Muslims. Akbar, a Mughal ruler for example, sought religious tolerance and abolished jizya.[146][147][148][149]
The death of Aurangzeb and the collapse of the Mughal Empire, which marks the beginning of modern India, in the early 18th century, provided opportunities for the Marathas, Sikhs, Mysoreans, and Nawabs of Bengal to exercise control over large regions of the Indian subcontinent.[150][151] By the mid-18th century, India was a major proto-industrializing region.[152][138]
Maritime trading between South Asia and European merchants began at the turn of the 16th century after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama returned to Europe. British, French, and Portuguese colonial interests struck treaties with these rulers and established their trading ports. In northwestern South Asia, a large region was consolidated into the Sikh Empire by Ranjit Singh.[153][154] After the defeat of the Nawab of Bengal and Tipu Sultan and his French allies, British traders went on to dominate much of South Asia through divide-and-rule tactics by the early 19th century. The region experienced significant de-industrialisation in its first few decades of British rule.[155] Control over the subcontinent was then transferred to the British government after the Indian Rebellion of 1857, with the British cracking down to some extent afterwards.[156]
An increase of famines and extreme poverty characterised the colonial period, though railways built with British technology eventually provided crucial famine relief by increasing food distribution throughout India.[157][155] Millions of South Asians began to migrate throughout the world, impelled by the economic/labour needs and opportunities presented by the British Empire.[158][159][160] The introduction of Western political thought inspired a growing Indian intellectual movement, and so by the 20th century, British rule began to be challenged by the Indian National Congress, which sought full independence under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.[161][162]
Britain, under pressure from Indian freedom fighters, increasingly gave self-rule to British India. By the 1940s, two rival camps had emerged among independence activists: those who favored a separate nation for Indian Muslims, and those who wanted a united India. As World War II raged, over 2 million Indians fought for Britain;[163] by the end of the war, Britain was greatly weakened, and thus decided to grant independence to the vast majority of South Asians in 1947,[163][164] though this coincided with the Partition of India into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, which resulted in significant displacement and violence and harder religious divides in the region.[165]
Contemporary era
Indian (brown) and Pakistani (green) territory on 15 August 1947, upon independence.
India and Pakistan consolidated their territory in the mid-20th century, but have an ongoing dispute over Kashmir.
In 1947, the newly independent India and Pakistan had to decide how to deal with the hundreds of princely states that controlled much of the subcontinent, as well as what to do with the remaining European (non-British) colonies.[166] A combination of referendums, military action, and negotiated accessions took place in rapid succession, leading to the political integration of the vast majority of India and Pakistan within a few years.[167][168]
India and Pakistan clashed several times in the decades after Independence, with disputes over Kashmir playing a significant role.[169] In 1971, the eastern half of Pakistan seceded with help from India and became the People's Republic of Bangladesh after the traumatic Bangladesh Liberation War.[170] This, along with India and Pakistan gaining nuclear weapons soon afterwards, increased tensions between the two countries.[171] The Cold War decades also contributed to the divide, as Pakistan aligned with the West and India with the Soviet Union;[172][173] other factors include the time period after the 1962 Sino-Indian War, which saw India and China move apart while Pakistan and China built closer relations.[174]
Pakistan has been beset with terrorism, economic issues, and military dominance of its government since Independence,[175] with none of its Prime Ministers having completed a full 5-year term in office.[176] India has grown significantly,[177] having slashed its rate of extreme poverty to below 20%[178] and surpassed Pakistan's GDP per capita in the 2010s due to economic liberalisation from the 1980s onward.[179] Bangladesh, having struggled greatly for decades due to conflict with and economic exploitation by Pakistan,[180][181] is now one of the fastest-growing countries in the region, beating India in terms of GDP per capita.[182][183] Afghanistan has gone through several invasions and Islamist regimes, with many of its refugees having gone to Pakistan and other parts of South Asia and bringing back cultural influences such as cricket.[184][185]Religious nationalism has grown across the region,[186][187] with persecution causing millions of Hindus and Christians to flee Pakistan and Bangladesh,[188][189] and Hindu nationalism having grown in India with the election of the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014.[187]
According to Saul Cohen, early colonial era strategists treated South Asia with East Asia, but in reality, the South Asia region excluding Afghanistan is a distinct geopolitical region separated from other nearby geostrategic realms, one that is geographically diverse.[192] The region is home to a variety of geographical features, such as glaciers, rainforests, valleys, deserts, and grasslands that are typical of much larger continents. It is surrounded by three water bodies – the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea – and has acutely varied climate zones. The tip of the Indian Peninsula had the highest quality pearls.[193]
The climate of this vast region varies considerably from area to area from tropical monsoon in the south to temperate in the north. The variety is influenced by not only the altitude but also by factors such as proximity to the seacoast and the seasonal impact of the monsoons. Southern parts are mostly hot in summers and receive rain during monsoon periods. The northern belt of Indo-Gangetic plains also is hot in summer, but cooler in winter. The mountainous north is colder and receives snowfall at higher altitudes of Himalayan ranges.
As the Himalayas block the north-Asian bitter cold winds, the temperatures are considerably moderate in the plains down below. For the most part, the climate of the region is called the monsoon climate, which keeps the region humid during summer and dry during winter, and favours the cultivation of jute, tea, rice, and various vegetables in this region.
South Asia is largely divided into four broad climate zones:[201]
The northern Indian edge and northern Pakistani uplands have a dry subtropical continental climate
The far south of India and southwest Sri Lanka have an equatorial climate
Most of the peninsula has a tropical climate with variations:
Maximum relative humidity of over 80% has been recorded in Khasi and Jaintia Hills and Sri Lanka, while the area adjustment to Pakistan and western India records lower than 20%–30%.[201] Climate of South Asia is largely characterised by monsoons. South Asia depends critically on monsoon rainfall.[202] Two monsoon systems exist in the region:[203]
The summer monsoon: Wind blows from the southwest to most parts of the region. It accounts for 70%–90% of the annual precipitation.
The winter monsoon: Wind blows from the northeast. Dominant in Sri Lanka and Maldives.
The warmest period of the year precedes the monsoon season (March to mid June). In the summer the low pressures are centered over the Indus-Gangetic Plain and high wind from the Indian Ocean blows towards the center. The monsoons are the second coolest season of the year because of high humidity and cloud covering. But, at the beginning of June, the jetstreams vanish above the Tibetan Plateau, low pressure over the Indus Valley deepens and the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) moves in. The change is violent. Moderately vigorous monsoon depressions form in the Bay of Bengal and make landfall from June to September.[201]
Greater warming increases the amount of moisture in the atmosphere over Asia, which directly leads to extreme precipitation. Probability of 20-year, 50-year and 100-year extremes consistently increases with warming across Asia. In the most affected parts of South Asia, up to a 15-fold average increase for 100-year extremes is possible under 3 °C (5.4 °F) of warming.[204]
South Asian countries are expected to experience more flooding in the future as the monsoon pattern intensifies.[205]: 1459 Across Asia as a whole, 100-year extremes in vapour transport (directly related to extreme precipitation) would become 2.6 times more frequent under 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) of global warming, yet 3.9 and 7.5 times more frequent under 2 °C (3.6 °F) and 3 °C (5.4 °F). In parts of South Asia, they could become up to 15 times more frequent.[204] At the same time, up to two-thirds of glacier ice in the Hindu Kush region may melt by 2100 under high warming, and these glaciers feed the water basin of over 220 million people.[205]: 1487 As glacier meltwater flow diminishes after 2050, Hydropower generation would become less predictable and reliable, while agriculture would become more reliant on the intensified monsoon than ever before.[206][207][208] Around 2050, people living in the Ganges and Indus river basins (where up to 60% of non-monsoon irrigation comes from the glaciers[209]) may be faced with severe water scarcity due to both climate and socioeconomic reasons.[205]: 1486
By 2030, major Indian cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Cuttack, and Kochi are expected to end up with much of their territory below the tide level.[210] In Mumbai alone, failing to adapt to this would result in damages of US$112–162 billion by 2050, which would nearly triple by 2070.[205]Sea level rise in Bangladesh will displace 0.9–2.1 million people by 2050 and may force the relocation of up to one third of power plants by 2030.[205]Food security will become more uneven, and some South Asian countries could experience significant social impacts from global food price volatility.[205]: 1494 Infectious diarrhoea mortality and dengue fever incidence is also likely to increase across South Asia.[205]: 1508 Parts of South Asia would also reach "critical health thresholds" for heat stress under all but the lowest-emission climate change scenarios.[205]: 1465 Under the high-emission scenario, 40 million people (nearly 2% of the South Asian population) may be driven to internal migration by 2050 due to climate change.[205]: 1469
India is estimated to have the world's highest social cost of carbon - meaning that it experiences the greatest impact from greenhouse gas emissions.[211] Other estimates describe Bangladesh as the country most likely to be the worst-affected.[212][213][214] In the 2017 edition of Germanwatch's Climate Risk Index, Bangladesh and Pakistan ranked sixth and seventh respectively as the countries most affected by climate change in the period from 1996 to 2015, while India ranked fourth among the list of countries most affected by climate change in 2015.[215] Some research suggests that South Asia as a whole would lose 2% of its GDP to climate change by 2050, while these losses would approach 9% by the end of the century under the most intense climate change scenario.[205]: 1468
Northwestern South Asia is the site of many of the first civilisations of the world, such as the Indus Valley Civilisation.[226][227] It was historically the most-conquered region of South Asia because it is the first region that invading armies coming from the west had to cross to enter the Indian subcontinent;[228] because of these many invasions, Northwestern South Asia has significant influences from various sources outside of South Asia, mainly from the Muslim world.[229]
Historically, governments throughout Southern South Asia adopted Sanskrit for public political expression beginning around 300 CE and ending around 1300, resulting in greater integration into the broader South Asian cultural sphere.[236] This significantly influenced the languages of the region, making all of the major Dravidian languages except for Tamil highly Sanskritised.[237][238] Tamil influence in the region is quite significant, with prominent empires such as the Chola dynasty taking Tamil culture to Sri Lanka and beyond South Asia, and Sri Lanka having an ancient Tamil minority and a Dravidian-influenced majority language of Sinhala.[239][240][241]
The population of South Asia is about 1.938 billion which makes it the most populated region in the world.[242] It is socially very mixed, consisting of many language groups and religions, and social practices in one region that are vastly different from those in another.[243]
Population of South Asian countries in 1950, 1975, 2000, 2025, 2050, 2075 and 2100 projection from the United Nations has been displayed in table. The given population projections are based on medium fertility index. With India and Bangladesh approaching replacement rates fast, population growth in South Asia is facing steep decline and may turn negative in mid 21st century.[244][1]
Ethno-linguistic distribution map of South AsiaA clickable map of the official language or lingua franca spoken in each state/province of South Asia excluding the Maldives. Indo-Aryan languages are in green, Iranic languages in dark green, Dravidian languages in purple, Tibeto-Burman languages in red, and Turkic languages in orange.
There are numerous languages in South Asia. The spoken languages of the region are largely based on geography and shared across religious boundaries, but the written script is sharply divided by religious boundaries. In particular, Muslims of South Asia such as in Afghanistan and Pakistan use the Arabic alphabet and Persian Nastaliq. Till 1952, Muslim-majority Bangladesh (then known as East Pakistan) also mandated only the Nastaliq script, but after that adopted regional scripts and particularly Bengali, after the Language Movement for the adoption of Bengali as the official language of the then East Pakistan. Non-Muslims of South Asia, and some Muslims in India, on the other hand, use scripts such as those derived from Brahmi script for Indo-European languages and non-Brahmi scripts for Dravidian languages and others.[247][248]
The largest spoken language in this region is Hindustani language, followed by Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, and Punjabi.[247][248] In the modern era, new syncretic languages developed in the region such as Urdu that are used by the Muslim community of northern South Asia (particularly Pakistan and northern states of India).[253] The Punjabi language spans three religions: Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism. The spoken language is similar, but it is written in three scripts. The Sikh use Gurmukhi alphabet, Muslim Punjabis in Pakistan use the Nastaliq script, while Hindu Punjabis in India use the Gurmukhi or Nāgarī script. The Gurmukhi and Nagari scripts are distinct but close in their structure, but the Persian Nastaliq script is very different.[254]
English, with British spelling, is commonly used in urban areas and is a major economic lingua franca of South Asia (see also South Asian English).[257]
In 2010, South Asia had the world's largest population of Hindus,[35] about 510 million Muslims,[35] over 27 million Sikhs, 35 million Christians and over 25 million Buddhists.[33] Hindus make up about 68 per cent or about 900 million and Muslims at 31 per cent or 510 million of the overall South Asia population,[259] while Buddhists, Jains, Christians, and Sikhs constitute most of the rest. The Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and Christians are concentrated in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, while the Muslims are concentrated in Afghanistan (99%), Bangladesh (90%), Pakistan (96%), and Maldives (100%).[35] With all major religions practised in the subcontinent, South Asia is known for its religious diversity and one of the most religiously diverse regions on earth.
Indian religions are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent; namely Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.[260] The Indian religions are distinct yet share terminology, concepts, goals and ideas, and from South Asia spread into East Asia and southeast Asia.[260] Early Christianity and Islam were introduced into coastal regions of South Asia by merchants who settled among the local populations. Later Sindh, Balochistan, and parts of the Punjab region saw conquest by the Arab caliphates along with an influx of Muslims from Persia and Central Asia, which resulted in spread of both Shia and Sunni Islam in parts of northwestern region of South Asia. Subsequently, under the influence of Muslim rulers of the Islamic sultanates and the Mughal Empire, Islam spread in South Asia.[261][262] About one-third of the world's Muslims are from South Asia.[34][36][32]
Country
State religion
Religious population as a percentage of total population
South Asia is home to some of the most populated urban areas in the world. According to the 2023 edition of Demographia World Urban Areas, the region contains 8 of the world's 35 megacities (urban areas over 10 million population):[275]
The South Asian diaspora, also known as the Desi diaspora,[278] is the group of people whose ancestral origins lie in South Asia, but who live outside the region.[279] There are over 44 million people in this diaspora.[280]
An Afghan soldier playing cricket. Afghan refugees who lived in Pakistan and India brought the sport back to Afghanistan, and it is now one of the most popular sports in the country.[185]
Mumbai is the financial capital of India with GDP of $400 billion[288]GDP per capita development in South Asia
India is the largest economy in the region (US$4.11 trillion) and makes up almost 80% of the South Asian economy; it is the world's 5th largest in nominal terms and 3rd largest by purchasing power adjusted exchange rates (US$14.26 trillion).[289] India is the member of G-20 major economies and BRICS from the region. It is the fastest-growing major economy in the world and one of the world's fastest registering a growth of 7.2% in FY 2022–23.[290]
India is followed by Bangladesh, which has a GDP of ($446 billion). It has the fastest GDP growth rate in Asia. It is one of the emerging and growth-leading economies of the world, and is also listed among the Next Eleven countries. It is also one of the fastest-growing middle-income countries. It has the world's 33rd largest GDP in nominal terms and is the 25th largest by purchasing power adjusted exchange rates ($1.476 trillion). Bangladesh's economic growth was 6.4% in 2022.[291] The next one is Pakistan, which has an economy of ($340 billion). Next is Sri Lanka, which has the 2nd highest GDP per capita and the 4th largest economy in the region. According to a World Bank report in 2015, driven by a strong expansion in India, coupled with favourable oil prices, from the last quarter of 2014 South Asia became the fastest-growing region in the world.[292]
Certain parts of South Asia are significantly wealthier than others; the four Indian states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Karnataka are projected to account for almost 50% of India's GDP by 2030, while the five South Indian states comprising 20% of India's population are expected to contribute 35% of India's GDP by 2030.[293]
According to the World Bank's 2011 report, based on 2005 ICP PPP, about 24.6% of the South Asian population was below the international poverty line of $1.25/day.[305] Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka had the lowest number of people below the poverty line, with 2.4%, 1.5% and 4.1% respectively.
According to the 2023 MPI (multidimensional poverty index) report by the UN, around 20% of South Asians are poor.[306]
51.7% of Afghanistan's population was under the MPI poverty threshold in 2019,[307] while 24.1% of Bangladesh's population was under the threshold in 2021.[308] India lifted 415 million people from MPI-poverty from 2005/06 to 2019/21; 16.4% of India's population was MPI-poor in 2019/2021, compared to 55.1% in 2005/2006.[178] 10% of India's population was under the international poverty line of $2.15/day in 2021.[309]
Durbar High School, oldest secondary school of Nepal, established in 1854 CELower class school in Sri LankaCollege of Natural Resources, Royal University of Bhutan
One of the key challenges in assessing the quality of education in South Asia is the vast range of contextual difference across the region, complicating any attempt to compare between countries.[322] In 2018, 11.3 million children at the primary level and 20.6 million children at the lower secondary level were out-of-school in South Asia, while millions of children completed primary education without mastering the foundational skills of basic numeracy and literacy.[323]
According to UNESCO, 241 million children between six and fourteen years or 81 per cent of the total were not learning in Southern and Central Asia in 2017. Only sub-Saharan Africa had a higher rate of children not learning. Two-thirds of these children were in school, sitting in classrooms. Only 19% of children attending primary and lower secondary schools attain a minimum proficiency level in reading and mathematics.[324][325] According to a citizen-led assessment, only 48% in Indian public schools and 46% of children in Pakistan public schools could read a class two level text by the time they reached class five.[326][325] This poor quality of education in turn has contributed to some of the highest drop-out rates in the world, while over half of the students complete secondary school with acquiring requisite skills.[325]
In South Asia, classrooms are teacher-centred and rote-based, while children are often subjected to corporal punishment and discrimination.[323] Different South Asian countries have different education structures. While by 2018 India and Pakistan has two of the most developed and increasingly decentralised education systems, Bangladesh still had a highly centralised system, and Nepal is in a state of transition from a centralised to a decentralised system.[322] In most South Asian countries children's education is theoretically free; the exceptions are the Maldives, where there is no constitutionally guaranteed free education, as well as Bhutan and Nepal, where fees are charged by primary schools. But parents are still faced with unmanageable secondary financial demands, including private tuition to make up for the inadequacies of the education system.[327]
The larger and poorer countries in the region, like India and Bangladesh, struggle financially to get sufficient resources to sustain an education system required for their vast populations, with an added challenge of getting large numbers of out-of-school children enrolled into schools.[322] Their capacity to deliver inclusive and equitable quality education is limited by low levels of public finance for education,[323] while the smaller emerging middle-income countries like Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Bhutan have been able to achieve universal primary school completion, and are in a better position to focus on quality of education.[322]
Children's education in the region is also adversely affected by natural and human-made crises including natural hazards, political instability, rising extremism and civil strife that makes it difficult to deliver educational services.[323] Afghanistan and India are among the top ten countries with the highest number of reported disasters due to natural hazards and conflict. The precarious security situation in Afghanistan is a big barrier in rolling out education programmes on a national scale.[322]
According to UNICEF, girls face incredible hurdles to pursue their education in the region,[323] while UNESCO estimated in 2005 that 24 million girls of primary-school age in the region were not receiving any formal education.[328][329] Between 1900 and 2005, most of the countries in the region had shown progress in girls' education with Sri Lanka and the Maldives significantly ahead of the others, while the gender gap in education has widened in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bangladesh made the greatest progress in the region in the period increasing girls' secondary school enrolment from 13 per cent to 56 per cent in ten years.[330][331]
With about 21 million students in 700 universities and 40 thousand colleges India had one of the largest higher education systems in the world in 2011, accounting for 86 per cent of all higher-level students in South Asia. Bangladesh (two million) and Pakistan (1.8 million) stood at distant second and third positions in the region. In Nepal (390 thousand) and Sri Lanka (230 thousand) the numbers were much smaller. Bhutan with only one university and Maldives with none hardly had between them about 7000 students in higher education in 2011. The gross enrolment ratio in 2011 ranged from about 10 per cent in Pakistan and Afghanistan to above 20 per cent in India, much below the global average of 31 per cent.[332]
According to World Health Organization (WHO), South Asia is home to two out of the three countries in the world still affected by polio, Pakistan and Afghanistan, with 306 & 28 polio cases registered in 2014 respectively.[335] Attempts to eradicate polio have been badly hit by opposition from militants in both countries, who say the program is cover to spy on their operations. Their attacks on immunisation teams have claimed 78 lives since December 2012.[336]
The World Bank estimates that India is one of the highest ranking countries in the world for the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world and is nearly double that of sub-Saharan Africa with dire consequences for mobility, mortality, productivity, and economic growth.[337]
A weekly child examination performed at a hospital in Farah, Afghanistan
According to the World Bank, 64% of South Asians lived in rural areas in 2022.[338] In 2008, about 75% of South Asia's poor lived in rural areas and most relied on agriculture for their livelihood[339] according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation.
In 2021, approximately 330 million people in the region were malnourished.[340] A 2015 report says that Nepal reached both the WFS target as well as MDG and is moving towards bringing down the number of undernourished people to less than 5% of the population.[311] Bangladesh reached the MDG target with the National Food Policy framework – with only 16.5% of the population undernourished. In India, the malnourished comprise just over 15 per cent of the population. While the number of malnourished people in the neighbourhood has shown a decline over the last 25 years, the number of under-nourished in Pakistan displays an upward trend. There were 28.7 million hungry in Pakistan in the 1990s – a number that has steadily increased to 41.3 million in 2015 with 22% of the population malnourished. Approximately 194.6 million people are undernourished in India, which accounts for the highest number of people suffering from hunger in any single country.[311][341]
The 2006 report stated, "the low status of women in South Asian countries and their lack of nutritional knowledge are important determinants of high prevalence of underweight children in the region." Corruption and the lack of initiative on the part of the government has been one of the major problems associated with nutrition in India. Illiteracy in villages has been found to be one of the major issues that need more government attention. The report mentioned that although there has been a reduction in malnutrition due to the Green Revolution in South Asia, there is concern that South Asia has "inadequate feeding and caring practices for young children."[342]
India is a secularfederativeparliamentary republic with the prime minister as head of government. With the most populous functional democracy in world[344] and the world's longest written constitution,[345][346][347] India has been stably sustaining the political system it adopted in 1950 with no regime change except that by a democratic election. India's sustained democratic freedoms are unique among the world's newer establishments. Since the formation of its republic abolishing British law, it has remained a democracy with civil liberties, an active Supreme Court, and a largely independent press.[348] India leads region in Democracy Index. It has a multi-party system in its internal regional politics[349] whereas alternative transfer of powers to alliances of Indian left-wing and right-wing political parties in national government provide it with characteristics of a two-party state.[350] India has been facing notable internal religious conflicts and separatism however consistently becoming more and more stable with time.
Bangladesh is a unitaryparliamentary republic. The law of Bangladesh defines it as Islamic[353] as well as secular.[354] The nature of Bangladeshi politics can be characterised as a multi-party system. Bangladesh is a unitary state and parliamentary democracy.[355] Bangladesh also stands out as one of the few Muslim-majority democracies. "It is a moderate and generally secular and tolerant — though sometimes this is getting stretched at the moment — alternative to violent extremism in a very troubled part of the world", said Dan Mozena, the US ambassador to Bangladesh. Although Bangladesh's legal code is secular, more citizens are embracing a conservative version of Islam, with some pushing for sharia law, analysts say. Experts say that the rise in conservatism reflects the influence of foreign-financed Islamic charities and the more austere version of Islam brought home by migrant workers in Persian Gulf countries.[356]
Bhutan is a Buddhist state with a constitutional monarchy. The country has been ranked as the least corrupt and most peaceful country in the region, with the most economic freedom, in 2016.
Maldives is a unitary presidential republic with Sunni Islam strictly as the state religion.
A 1959 map showing how most of Asia was communist (in red), with Pakistan (blue) being more aligned with capitalist powers than India.[179] The resulting Cold War dynamics impacted South Asian geopolitics in the late 20th century.[372]
While in East Asia, regional trade accounts for 50% of total trade, it accounts for only a little more than 5% in South Asia.[381]
Populism is a general characteristic of internal politics of India.[382]
Regional groups of countries
This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: Statistics need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(October 2024)
^According to the UN cartographic section website disclaimers, "DESIGNATIONS USED: The depiction and use of boundaries, geographic names and related data shown on maps and included in lists, tables, documents, and databases on this website are not warranted to be error free nor do they necessarily imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations."[58]
^Doniger 2010, p. 66: "Much of what we now call Hinduism may have had roots in cultures that thrived in South Asia long before the creation of textual evidence that we can decipher with any confidence. Remarkable cave paintings have been preserved from Mesolithic sites dating from c. 30,000 BCE in Bhimbetka, near present-day Bhopal, in the Vindhya Mountains in the province of Madhya Pradesh."
^Jones & Ryan 2006, p. xvii: "Some practices of Hinduism must have originated in Neolithic times (c. 4000 BCE). The worship of certain plants and animals as sacred, for instance, could very likely have very great antiquity. The worship of goddesses, too, a part of Hinduism today, maybe a feature that originated in the Neolithic."
^Michaels: "They called themselves arya ("Aryans," literally "the hospitable," from the Vedic arya, "homey, the hospitable") but even in the Rgveda, arya denotes a cultural and linguistic boundary and not only a racial one."[88]
^"Shah Jahan eventually sent her body 800 km (500 mi) to Agra for burial in the Rauza-i Munauwara ("Illuminated Tomb") – a personal tribute and a stone manifestation of his imperial power. This tomb has been celebrated globally as the Taj Mahal."[19]
^ abSaez 2012, p. 58: "Afghanistan is considered to be part of Central Asia. It regards itself as a link between Central Asia and South Asia."
^"South Asia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 1 April 2023.
^ abBaker, Kathleen M.; Chapman, Graham P. (11 March 2002). The Changing Geography of Asia. Routledge. pp. 10–. ISBN978-1-134-93384-6. This greater India is well defined in terms of topography; it is the Indian sub-continent, hemmed in by the Himalayas on the north, the Hindu Khush in the west and the Arakanese in the east.
^Lowe, John J. (2015). Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit: The syntax and semantics of adjectival verb forms. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN978-0-19-100505-3. (The Rigveda) consists of 1,028 hymns (suktas), highly crafted poetic compositions originally intended for recital during rituals and for the invocation of and communication with the Indo-Aryan gods. Modern scholarly opinion largely agrees that these hymns were composed between around 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, during the eastward migration of the Indo-Aryan tribes from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across the Punjab into north India.
^(a) Witzel, Michael (2008). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Gavin Flood (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 68–70. ISBN978-0-470-99868-7. It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); ... The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalised early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is in fact something of a tape-recording of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. (pp. 68–69) ... The RV text was composed before the introduction and massive use of iron, that is before ca. 1200–1000 BCE. (p. 70)
(b) Doniger, Wendy (2014). On Hinduism. Oxford University Press. pp. xviii, 10. ISBN978-0-19-936009-3. A Chronology of Hinduism: ca. 1500–1000 BCE Rig Veda; ca. 1200–900 BCE Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda (p. xviii); Hindu texts began with the Rig Veda ('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500 BCE (p. 10)
(c) Ludden 2014, p. 19, "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence 'panch' and 'ab') draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva)."
(d) Dyson 2018, pp. 14–15, "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization is no longer believed to have been due to an 'Aryan invasion' it is widely thought that, at roughly the same time, or perhaps a few centuries later, new Indo-Aryan-speaking people and influences began to enter the subcontinent from the north-west. Detailed evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, a predecessor of the language that would eventually be called Sanskrit was probably introduced into the north-west sometime between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago. This language was related to one then spoken in eastern Iran; and both of these languages belonged to the Indo-European language family. ... It seems likely that various small-scale migrations were involved in the gradual introduction of the predecessor language and associated cultural characteristics. However, there may not have been a tight relationship between movements of people on the one hand, and changes in language and culture on the other. Moreover, the process whereby a dynamic new force gradually arose—a people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves as 'Arya'—was certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features which came from outside with other features—probably including some surviving Harappan influences—that were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya people—especially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epics—are poor guides as to historical events. Of course, the emerging Arya were to have a huge impact on the history of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, little is known about their early presence.";
(e) Robb 2011, pp. 46–, "The expansion of Aryan culture is supposed to have begun around 1500 BCE. It should not be thought that this Aryan emergence (though it implies some migration) necessarily meant either a sudden invasion of new peoples, or a complete break with earlier traditions. It comprises a set of cultural ideas and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this society are recorded in the Vedas."
^Fisher 2018, pp. 173–174: "The partition of South Asia that produced India and West and East Pakistan resulted from years of bitter negotiations and recriminations ... The departing British also decreed that the hundreds of princes, who ruled one-third of the subcontinent and a quarter of its population, became legally independent, their status to be settled later. Geographical location, personal and popular sentiment, and substantial pressure and incentives from the new governments led almost all princes eventually to merge their domains into either Pakistan or India. ... Each new government asserted its exclusive sovereignty within its borders, realigning all territories, animals, plants, minerals, and all other natural and human-made resources as either Pakistani or Indian property, to be used for its national development... Simultaneously, the central civil and military services and judiciary split roughly along religious 'communal' lines, even as they divided movable government assets according to a negotiated formula: 22.7 percent for Pakistan and 77.3 percent for India."
^Chatterji, Joya; Washbrook, David (2013), "Introduction: Concepts and Questions", in Chatterji, Joya; Washbrook, David (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora, London and New York: Routledge, ISBN978-0-415-48010-9, Joya Chatterji describes how the partition of the British Indian empire into the new nation states of India and Pakistan produced new diaspora on a vast, and hitherto unprecedented, scale, but hints that the sheer magnitude of refugee movements in South Asia after 1947 must be understood in the context of pre-existing migratory flows within the partitioned regions (see also Chatterji 2013). She also demonstrates that the new national states of India and Pakistan were quickly drawn into trying to stem this migration. As they put into place laws designed to restrict the return of partition emigrants, this produced new dilemmas for both new nations in their treatment of 'overseas Indians'; and many of them lost their right to return to their places of origin in the subcontinent, and also their claims to full citizenship in host countries.
^Talbot, Ian; Singh, Gurharpal (2009), The Partition of India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN978-0-521-85661-4, archived from the original on 13 December 2016, retrieved 15 November 2015, When the British divided and quit India in August 1947, they not only partitioned the subcontinent with the emergence of the two nations of India and Pakistan but also the provinces of Punjab and Bengal. ... Indeed for many the Indian subcontinent's division in August 1947 is seen as a unique event which defies comparative historical and conceptual analysis
^Khan, Yasmin (2017) [2007], The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (2nd ed.), New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 1, ISBN978-0-300-23032-1, South Asians learned that the British Indian empire would be partitioned on 3 June 1947. They heard about it on the radio, from relations and friends, by reading newspapers and, later, through government pamphlets. Among a population of almost four hundred million, where the vast majority live in the countryside, ploughing the land as landless peasants or sharecroppers, it is hardly surprising that many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, did not hear the news for many weeks afterwards. For some, the butchery and forced relocation of the summer months of 1947 may have been the first that they knew about the creation of the two new states rising from the fragmentary and terminally weakened British empire in India
^"Indian SubcontinentArchived 21 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine" Encyclopedia of Modern Asia Macmillan Reference USA (Gale Group), 2006: "The area is divided between five major nation-states, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and includes as well the two small nations of Bhutan and the Maldives Republic... The total area can be estimated at 4.4 million square kilometres or exactly 10 percent of the land surface of Asia."
^ ab"Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use". United Nations. Archived from the original on 11 July 2017. Retrieved 25 August 2012. Quote: "The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories by the United Nations."
^Anderson, Ewan W.; Anderson, Liam D. (2013). An Atlas of Middle Eastern Affairs. Routledge. p. 5. ISBN978-1-136-64862-5., Quote: "To the east, Iran, as a Gulf state, offers a generally accepted limit to the Middle East. However, Afghanistan, also a Muslim state, is then left in isolation. It is not accepted as a part of Central Asia and it is clearly not part of the Indian subcontinent".
^Dallen J. Timothy and Gyan P. Nyaupane, Cultural Heritage and Tourism in the Developing World: A Regional Perspective, page 127, Routledge, 2009, ISBN978-1-134-00228-3
^Navnita Chadha Behera, International Relations in South Asia: Search for an Alternative Paradigm, page 129, SAGE Publications India, 2008, ISBN978-81-7829-870-2
^Saul Bernard Cohen (2008). Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations (2 ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 329. ISBN978-0-7425-8154-8.
^ abMcLeod, John (2002). The History of India. Greenwood Press. p. 1. ISBN978-0-313-31459-9.
^N. D. Arora, Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination, page 42:1, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2010, 9780070090941
^Stephen Adolphe Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler & Darrell T. Tryon, Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, pages 787, International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, Published by Walter de Gruyter, 1996, ISBN3-11-013417-9
^Sarkar, Sudeshna (16 May 2007). "SAARC: Afghanistan comes in from the cold". Current Affairs – Security Watch. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich. Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
^Chatterjee Aneek, International Relations Today: Concepts and Applications, page 166, Pearson Education India, ISBN978-81-317-3375-2
^"Asia" > Geology and GeographyArchived 23 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press, 2003: "Asia can be divided into six regions, each possessing distinctive physical, cultural, economic, and political characteristics... South Asia (Afghanistan and the nations of the Indian Peninsula) is isolated from the rest of Asia by great mountain barriers."
^"Asia" > Geologic history – Tectonic frameworkArchived 1 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2009: "The paleotectonic evolution of Asia terminated some 50 million years ago as a result of the collision of the Indian Plate with Eurasia. Asia's subsequent neotectonic development has largely disrupted the continent's preexisting fabric. The first-order neotectonic units of Asia are Stable Asia, the Arabian and Indian cratons, the Alpide plate boundary zone (along which the Arabian and Indian platforms have collided with the Eurasian continental plate), and the island arcs and marginal basins."
^ abcBaker, Kathleen M.; Chapman, Graham P. (2002) [First published 1992]. The Changing Geography of Asia. Taylor & Francis. p. 10. ISBN978-1-134-93384-6.: "This greater India is well defined in terms of topography; it is the Indian peninsula, hemmed in by the Himalayas on the north, the Hindu Khush in the west and the Arakanese in the east."
^ ab"Indian subcontinent". New Oxford Dictionary of English (ISBN0-19-860441-6) New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; p. 929: "the part of Asia south of the Himalayas which forms a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Historically forming the whole territory of greater India, the region is now divided between India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh."
^McLeod, John (2002). The History of India. Greenwood Press. p. 2. ISBN978-0-313-31459-9.
^ abMilton Walter Meyer, South Asia: A Short History of the Subcontinent, pages 1, Adams Littlefield, 1976, ISBN0-8226-0034-X Jim Norwine & Alfonso González, The Third World: states of mind and being, pages 209, Taylor & Francis, 1988, ISBN0-04-910121-8 Boniface, Brian G.; Cooper, Christopher P. (2005). Worldwide Destinations: The Geography of Travel and Tourism. Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN978-0-7506-5997-0. Archived from the original on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 19 July 2015. Judith Schott & Alix Henley, Culture, Religion, and Childbearing in a Multiracial Society, pages 274, Elsevier Health Sciences, 1996, ISBN0-7506-2050-1 Raj S. Bhopal, Ethnicity, race, and health in multicultural societies, pages 33, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN0-19-856817-7 Lucian W. Pye & Mary W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics, pages 133, Harvard University Press, 1985, ISBN0-674-04979-9 Mark Juergensmeyer, The Oxford handbook of global religions, pages 465, Oxford University Press US, 2006, ISBN0-19-513798-1
^ abBose, Sugata; Jalal, Ayesha (2004) [First published 1998]. Modern South Asia (2nd ed.). Routledge. p. 3. ISBN0-415-30787-2. Indian subcontinent – or South Asia – as it has come to be known in more recent and neutral parlance
^The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press, 2003: "region, S central Asia, comprising the countries of Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh and the Himalayan states of Nepal, and Bhutan. Sri Lanka, an island off the southeastern tip of the Indian peninsula, is often considered a part of the subcontinent."
^Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (16 March 2006), India Before Europe, Cambridge University Press, pp. 5–8, 12–14, 51, 78–80, ISBN978-0-521-80904-7, archived from the original on 24 April 2016, retrieved 9 December 2016
^Ronald B. Inden, Imagining India, page 51, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000, ISBN1-85065-520-0, Quote:"It is very common today in academic and official circles to speak of the Indian subcontinent as 'South Asia', thereby distinguishing it from an 'East Asia'."
^Neelis 2011, pp. 114–115, 144, 160–163, 170–176, 249–250.
^Klimburg-Salter, Deborah (1989). The Kingdom of Bamiyan: Buddhist art and culture of the Hindu Kush. Istituto Universitario Orientale & Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. ISBN978-0-87773-765-0. OCLC25902336. (Reprinted by Shambala)
^"Ellora Caves – UNESCO World Heritage Centre". UNESCO. Archived from the original on 9 December 2016. Retrieved 26 December 2016., Quote:"Ellora, with its uninterrupted sequence of monuments dating from A.D. 600 to 1000, brings the civilization of ancient India to life. Not only is the Ellora complex a unique artistic creation and a technological exploit but, with its sanctuaries devoted to Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, it illustrates the spirit of tolerance that was characteristic of ancient India."
Pirbhai, M. Reza (2009). Reconsidering Islam in a South Asian Context. Brill. ISBN978-90-04-17758-1.
Richards, J. F. (October 1974). "The Islamic frontier in the east: Expansion into South Asia". South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 4 (1): 91–109. doi:10.1080/00856407408730690. ISSN0085-6401.
Shokoohy, Mehrdad (1988). Bhadreśvar: The Oldest Islamic Monuments in India. Brill. ISBN978-90-04-08341-7.; see discussion of earliest raids in Gujarat
^Heathcote, T. A. (1995). The Military in British India: The Development of British Forces in South Asia:1600–1947. Manchester University Press. pp. 5–7. ISBN978-1-78383-064-0.
^Muhammad B. Sam Mu'izz Al-Din, T. W. Haig, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. VII, ed. C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs and C. Pellat, (Brill, 1993)
^Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. (1955) [reissued 2002]. A history of South India from prehistoric times to the fall of Vijayanagar. New Delhi: Indian Branch, Oxford University Press. pp. 216, 239–250. ISBN978-0-19-560686-7.
^Seiple, Chris (2013). The Routledge handbook of religion and security. New York: Routledge. p. 96. ISBN978-0-415-66744-9.
^Singh, Pashaura; Fenech, Louis (2014). The Oxford handbook of Sikh studies. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 236–238, 442–445. ISBN978-0-19-969930-8.
^White, Matthew (2011). The Great Big Book of Horrible Things. W. W. Norton. p. 234. ISBN978-0-393-08192-3. The Mughals traditionally had been tolerant of Hinduism ... Aurangzeb, however ... prohibited Hindus from riding horses or litters. He reintroduced the head tax non-Muslims had to pay. Aurangzeb relentlessly destroyed Hindu temples all across India.
^J. S. Grewal (1990). The Sikhs of the Punjab. The New Cambridge History of India. Vol. II.3. Cambridge University Press. pp. 99, 103. ISBN978-0-521-26884-4. In 1799, a process of unification was started by Ranjit Singh virtually to establish an empire ... Before his death in 1839 Rajit Singh's authority over all the conquered and subordinated territories between the river Satlej and the mountain ranges of Ladakh, Karakoram, Hindukush and Sulaiman was recognized.
^Kumar, M. Ravi; Bhatia, S. C. (1999). "A new seismic hazard map for the Indian plate region under the global seismic hazard assessment programme". Current Science. 77 (3): 447. JSTOR24102967.
^M. Asif Khan, Tectonics of the Nanga Parbat syntaxis and the Western Himalaya, page 375, Geological Society of London, 2000, ISBN978-1-86239-061-4
^A. M. Celâl Şengör, Tectonic evolution of the Tethyan Region, Springer, 1989, ISBN978-0-7923-0067-0
^Valentin Semenovich Burtman & Peter Hale Molnar, Geological and Geophysical Evidence for Deep Subduction of Continental Crust Beneath the Pamir, page 10, Geological Society of America, 1993, ISBN0-8137-2281-0
^ abcdefghijShaw, R., Y. Luo, T. S. Cheong, S. Abdul Halim, S. Chaturvedi, M. Hashizume, G. E. Insarov, Y. Ishikawa, M. Jafari, A. Kitoh, J. Pulhin, C. Singh, K. Vasant, and Z. Zhang, 2022: Chapter 10: Asia. In Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability [H.-O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E. S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, New York, US, pp. 1457–1579 |doi=10.1017/9781009325844.012.
^ ab Adams, C. J., Classification of religions: GeographicalArchived 14 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007. Retrieved 15 July 2010; Quote: "Indian religions, including early Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and sometimes also Theravāda Buddhism and the Hindu- and Buddhist-inspired religions of South and Southeast Asia".
^Alberts, Tara; Irving, D. R. M., eds. (2013). Intercultural Exchange in Southeast Asia: History and Society in the Early Modern World. I.B. Tauris. ISBN978-0-85772-283-6.
^"Population by Religion"(PDF). Pakistan Burau of Statistics, Government of Pakistan: 1. Archived from the original(PDF) on 29 March 2020. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
^Khosla, Varuni (17 January 2023). "Ultimate Kho Kho S1 claims total reach of 41 million viewers from India". mint. Archived from the original on 19 January 2023. Retrieved 18 January 2023. He also said that UKK is now among the top-5 non-cricketing leagues in India, after Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) and Indian Super League being the first two...
^ ab"UNGEGN List of Country Names"(PDF). United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names. 2007. Archived(PDF) from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 28 July 2011.
^Last update for Afghanistan from the World Economic Outlook is for 2020. Later years are unavailable.
^Individual country percentages may not add up to 100% due to rounding. Afghanistan not included in 2022 totals due to year mismatch. World Economic Outlook also does not count Afghanistan in the South Asia subtotals.
^ASER Pakistan (2015). Annual Status of Education Report (Facilitated by SAFED). ASER Centre ASER IndiaArchived 3 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine (2016). Annual Status of Education Report (Facilitated by Pratham). ASER Centre
^Unterhalter, Elaine; Rajagopalan, Rajee; Challender, Chloe (2005). A Scorecard on gender equality and girls' education in Asia 1990–2000. Bangkok: UNESCO. ISBN92-9223-041-7.
^"World Bank Report". The World Bank. 2009. Archived from the original on 18 December 2008. Retrieved 13 March 2009. World Bank Report on Malnutrition in India
^Perkovich, George. "Is India a Major Power?"(PDF). The Washington Quarterly (27.1 Winter 2003–04). Archived from the original(PDF) on 27 February 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
^V.K. Nayar (2005). Crossing the Frontiers of Conflict in the North East and Jammu and Kashmir: From Real Politik to Ideal Politik. Shipra Publications. p. 198. ISBN978-81-7541-218-7. Though Indian victory in the India- Pakistan War 1971 and the liberation of Bangladesh refurbished India's image
^Burne, Lester H. (2003). Chronological History of U.S. Foreign Relations: 1932–1988. Routledge. ISBN0-415-93916-X.
^Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali (18 May 1974), Prime minister Secretariat Press Release, Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) and Pakistan Television (PTV), archived from the original on 18 September 2011, India's so-called Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) is tested and designed to intimidate and establish "Indian hegemony in the subcontinent", most particularly Pakistan...
Bhatia, Tej K. (2008). "Major regional languages". In Kachru, Braj B.; Kachru, Yamuna; Sridhar, S. N. (eds.). Language in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-78141-1.
Bhatia, Tej K.; Baumgardner, Robert J. (2008). "Language in the media and advertising". In Kachru, Braj B.; Kachru, Yamuna; Sridhar, S. N. (eds.). Language in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-78141-1.
Hiltebeitel, Alf (2007), "Hinduism"(Digital printing), in Kitagawa, Joseph (ed.), The Religious Traditions of Asia: Religion, History, and Culture, Routledge, ISBN978-1-136-87590-8
Pandharipande, Rajeshwari V. (2008). "Language of religion". In Kachru, Braj B.; Kachru, Yamuna; Sridhar, S. N. (eds.). Language in South Asia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-78141-1.
Anthony, David W. (2007), The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, Princeton University Press
Beckwith, Christopher I. (2009), Empires of the Silk Road, Princeton University Press
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to South Asia.
_without_national_boundaries.svg)
update.PNG)
.svg)
.svg)
.png)
.svg)
.png)
_in_Mughal_Court,_1650.jpg)
.png)
_evening.jpg)
.jpg)
.svg){kind=small}
