Indian civilization is more than 5000 years old and is the largest democracy in the world. It is the second most populated, with approximately one billion people, and is the seventh largest country of the world. It is about 1/3 the size of the United States. It is triangular shaped and lies in Southern Asia.
The Himalayan mountains are to its North, the Arabian Sea to its West, the Bay of Bengal to its East and the Indian Ocean down South. Pakistan is on its Western border, Bangladesh and Mayanmar (Burma) to its East and Tibet and China to its North. Sri Lanka is the teardrop-shaped island hanging off its Southern tip. Its capital city is New Delhi and its people are 72% Indo-Aryan, 25% Dravidian, 3% Mongoloid. Its main languages are Hindi and English, plus 15 main languages and over 700 dialects. It consists of 82% Hindus, 11% Muslims, 2% Christians, 2% Sikh, 0.7% Buddhist and 0.7% Jains.
India is a country with probably the largest and most diverse mixture of races. All the five major racial types - Australoid, Mongoloid, Europoid, Caucasian and Negroid - find representation among the people of India, who are mainly a mixed race. The people of India belong to diverse ethnic groups. At various periods of India's long history, successive waves of settlers and invaders including the Aryans, Parthians, Greeks and Central Asians, Jews and Zorastrians came into the country and merged with the local population. This explains the variety of racial types, cultures and languages in India.
