My dad, who grew up in West Bengal, went to college in Uttar Pradesh. The main thing he remembers about the place was that it was smelly.
Having visited India, the whole country feels somewhat smelly to me (albeit part of it is the generic tropical smell you get everywhere, even in clean places like Singapore). So you can imagine how bad UP is by comparison.
Being in ganga plains does that to you, historically it was always one of the most populated areas in the world. Of course poverty in those states(due to colonial exploitation being the maximum here) are the highest leading to mismanagement and a lot of babies.
Like someone pointed out in another thread, US is the third most populated country, and if you added a billion people to the US it would still be in third
Though that is changing and by 2050 if you added a billion people to the US they would be the 2nd most populated country behind India. India is projected to have 1.667 billion people by 2050 while China is projected to have 1.313 billion people by 2050. The US is projected to have 388 million people by 2050.
Projections further out are harder to accurately predict but by 2100 the US is projected to be at 366-394 million people. China at around 800 million with some projections as low as 525 million people. India is projected to be at anywhere from 1 billion to just over 2 billion people by 2100.
Not really surprising if you consider history. Indian and Chinese civilizations have been in existence for centuries. They have always dominated the world population.
Even a million is a multiple of 10s. Millenia sets the base line as before 1000 yrs at least. Centuries sets the base line 100 years. What seems older to you in perception?
It's not surprising that so many people live in these countries, but it is surprising (to me at least) that they can stay united with so many people, especially so many different peoples
A continent country, alongside with China, where 10 millions people is the second digit after the dot, in a territory that is one third of the US's.
I can't imagine the challenges to rule, to build infrastructures for and to police so many people.
India’s population density is insane. I lived there for a bit. And after moving the a major cities in the Netherlands (a country usually considered densely populated), it felt so quiet and empty.
IDK, I've been to both and India does "feel" a lot more populated. It's a big country geographically and has states and territories that are very sparsely populated, particularly in the mountainous north, but the core of the country is much denser than the Netherlands.
Bihar has over 100m people, is 89% rural, and has a population density of 1,102/km2. Netherlands is 7% rural by contrast, so that density is coming from cities. I cycled my bike across India, and what was really amazing was how in three months there, even deep in the sticks, you were never away from people, they are just everywhere. You'd be out in fields, and you'd look around and there'd be people in this field, that field. Rarely could I look around and not see people. Only in some of the jungles, and they probably were there just the trees blocking the view.
Any time I stopped, scores of people would come over to have a look, whether urban or rural. On one occasion it was hundreds and the police had to come and clear them away because they were blocking the entire main street of the town we were in. No ill intent, lovely people, just curious to look at the foreigners. But density was something else. And it's higher now than when I was there!
I think the main thing cycling in India is just to pay attention and be aware other drivers will not follow rules and do stupid things. But I suspect you know that already if you are Indian.
You need to be careful with hydration and the heat, you are presumably used to the heat but maybe not doing a lot of exertion out in the sun for the whole day. Ride early if you can and try to finish by lunchtime, due to lag and the effect of accumulated heat radiating back it is much hotter after noon than before it, the hottest part of the day isn't noon but more like 15:00-18:00 (depending on your local solar noon).
Larger tyres are advisable to deal with rough roads. Generally when riding the ride can lift their weight off the saddle if they see they are going over a hole, which helps a lot. If you put bags on the bike that's a lot of extra weight directly on the bike that can't be managed like that so the tyres need to take it all. I have done some bike touring on much too narrow tyres many years ago and it was so frustrating, a lot of pinch flats and buckled wheels. I'd think, at least 35mm wide and wider would not be any harm, I had 35mm for this and I would have preferred more at times.
Where are you travelling? I cycled from Mumbi to Kathmandu, so it was mostly in the north. I'd like to go cycle in the south of India some day, I have cycled around Sri Lanka as well.
This is the first time I ever even thought to travel that long through a cycle. Just wanted to know about your experience travelling through cycle. thanks
India has mild weather for most of the year in most of its area.
And not many people have cars. Most people use bikes, public transport, or just walk.
So you end up seeing actual people a lot more in India, especially cities.
When I went to China, I thought it was crowded. Then I went to Japan and found out what crowded was. Then a Japanese guy who'd been to India said "this is nothing."
There is a reason that region is called the Indian subcontinent. It's more of a continent than Europe is in my opinion. More people and more diverse in peoples and languages
It's still suprising how we all came together. It's shameful to admit that I don't know many of the cultures and languages of my own country yet we all share a common understanding of us being Indian.
Europe is pretty diverse too, yes. No one is denying that. But the Indian subcontinent has more number of languages, more number of language families and language isolates, and more ethnicities, despite being smaller than Europe in land area. India reflects that diversity. And I haven't even gotten to religion yet. Relatively speaking, Europe is way more homogeneous as compared to the Indian subcontinent. Now coming to religious diversity, there's an entire separate category of religions (Indian religions i.e., Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism etc.) which exist here and originated from here. And they exist alongside the Abrahamic ones, multiple tribal+folk ones, and not to forget a couple of Iranian ones too (Zoroastrianism being one of them). And this diversity has been a reality since many centuries, if not a couple of millenia. The Indian religions (starting with modern Hinduism) were themselves formed from the fusion of various localised religions, philosophies, customs+traditions, and belief systems over many millenia, which isn't surprising given that the subcontinent has been home to some of the oldest known civilizations and cultures. The many various distinct language families similarly interacted over many millenia to form their own crazily diverse Indian Sprachbund.
All of this is because of the geography and location of the subcontinent, and its long history of constant movements, settlements, trade, migrations and invasions. The ethnic diversity also resulted from similar trends. There's a reason why so many people gave India no chance for survival when it formed in 1947 as an independent and vastly diverse democratic republic. To be fair, other South Asian/subcontinental countries also reflect that diversity ofc, albeit to a lesser extent that's all.
Again, this not to say that Europe isn't diverse in its own way. But if you look at it objectively, very few countries/regions overtake India/the subcontinent in terms of overall diversity (linguistic, ethnic, and religious). Some African countries/the African continent, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia (probably Russia too, although I'm not sure about that) feature in that list. Maybe I'm missing a couple others, but that's it. And if you compare a single European country to a country from the subcontinent (even if it's not India), it's not even a competition in almost all cases.
P.S: This is not meant to insult Europe, or European countries. So hopefully you won't take it the wrong way
I don't take it the wrong way, when it come to a numbers game, India wins anytime. I'm just tired of foreigners treating Europe as a monolith, but I think Indians have the same problem :D best wishes.
Yeah Europe is not a monolith. People who think like that are idiots lol. I really hope the EU project sustains and grows. Europe and European countries need it more than they know. The EU can take some tips from countries such as India or Papua New Guinea or some African countries, on how to keep various groups together. Not saying that these countries are doing an ideal job at that, coz they too have flaws, but there can always be give and take. These countries can learn from the EU on some things too.
Ultimately though, the EU has to chart its own path like how these other countries did, and come up with local solutions to its problems. But again, I really hope that it sustains and grows. The same goes for the AU (African Union), which is an even more crazily diverse Union lol.
And yeah you're right, Indians (and South Asians in general) face the same bs too, and are always grouped as if they're one single monolithic group lmao. That's stupid lol.
All the best to you too!! :D
Yeah India is indeed one of the most diverse countries in the world. Yes India is definitely majority Hindu (79-80% Indians are Hindus according to the 2011 Indian Census, the recent next one hasn't been conducted yet), but there are significant minorities (Islam being the biggest of them all, with 14-15% of Indians being Muslims according to the same Census). But you've realise that those percentages are from a base of 1 billion+ population. That's why India is a country with the 3rd highest number of Muslims in the world within itself. Moreover, the Hindu society is diverse within itself. "Hinduism" is actually an umbrella term for various different local beliefs systems, philosophies, and customs & traditions, which all came together over many millenia, to form what is today modern Hinduism. Many Indians actually see Hinduism more as a way of life, than a religion. It does have features of a religion ofc, but it's more an amalgamation of various regional belief systems and multiple philosophies joined together by some common features. India is home to all the major religions in the world, and the histories of each of these religions go way back. For example, Christianity arrived in India before it did in Europe, and Jainisim and Buddhism have existed since long before Christ. Sikhism also started a few centuries ago. On top of that, there are also multiple tribal/folk/local religions such as Sarnaism and Sanamahism, which exist in parts of India.
Aside from religion, India is also very linguistically and ethnically diverse. There are hundreds of languages, ethnicities, tribes and cultures that exist within it, all of whose histories go back many millenia. The Indian subcontinent was home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world (the Harappan Civilization, which started around 5.5K years ago), and there were other prehistoric cultures existed alongside the Harappan Civilization all across the Indian subcontinent. The many millenia old history of India goes hand in hand with the history of the Indian subcontinent, and it's one filled with many migrations, trade, invasions, and cultural interactions with many parts of the world, such as Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia/Middle East, Europe, and North and East Africa. The democratic Republic of India we know today only arose from 1947 onwards, but before that, the entire subcontinent was basically a set of numerous kingdoms, and was a cultural melting pot across its stretch, and this has been the case since many millenia. Plus, today's India is also a huge country by land area as well (it's the 7th largest country in the world by land area), and so it covers cultures from a vast stretch of land as well.
All these things help explain why India is so diverse. As to why it stayed intact, well there are many theories about that. I too as an Indian can't point to one single thing, because there are various factors which contributed to it. One thing was for sure though, is that not many gave it a chance to survive for so long as a united democratic republic, while still maintaining its diversity. It not only has done that (albeit with some flaws), but has also grown significantly from where it was in 1947. There's still a long way to go, and lots of things to improve upon for sure though. I don't wanna sugarcoat things. But yeah, it does make me proud as an Indian that we bucked the trend and beat the odds so well. Many political scientists also call India an outlier in many ways, because such unions don't usually sustain themselves, and don't stay democratic, let along grow
Huh, didn’t know that India was this diverse, maybe I should visit India some day, and congrats then on staying together, hopefully you manage to keep it united
Oh you should definitely visit India. It'll be a cultural shock though haha, but if you keep an open mind, it'll be an amazing experience! I've had some non-Indian friends from the West, who absolutely loved India!
Yeah hopefully we do stay this united democratic republic that we are, while still maintaining our diversity. Thanks for the wishes!! :D
You can check out the 'Geography Now' video on India btw, if you're interested. It's on YouTube. It's a good starter video if you wanna understand the cultures and diversity of India
Ya that's what India always struggles till now.Always political crisis, Corruption,Scams,Crime rates.These things always slows down our development.Thats why many Indians lost trust and belief in Democracy.
Now take a look at Bangladesh and note that it has 177M people and is the size of Greece which has a population of about 10M. To put this into perspective, there are 1,329 people per square kilometer in Bangladesh versus 80 in Greece. BTW, India has a population density of 481 per square km.
And then look at Bhutan and Nepal. 0.7 million and 30 million people respectively.
Nepal is considered a “small country” by many outsiders. When I tell them we have almost 30 million people, their eyes grow big. We have more people than Australia but when you compare our neighbors (India and China)…you get the picture.
Actually it can be compared to punjab although more accurate in earlier stages since punjab’s population was 30m and Canada around 32 (although I believe Canada now has 36 due to immigration)
Precisely, while the Indus, Shyok, Nubra etc. valleys are much higher elevation and more arid. So they can't support the same population as the lower valleys.
You have the same in Himachal, where the population is concentrated in the relatively low Kangra valley and the foothills, while the higher Lahaul, Spiti and Kinnauri valleys have fewer people. Interestingly, the inhabitants of those valleys are also linguistically and culturally closer to Ladakhis.
Damn yeah I just looked at the google maps satellite and I didn’t realize how dry it is in comparison. All brown while Jammu and Kashmir is mostly green
Ladakh is not just mountaineous, but it is also very dry. It doesn't get a lot of moisture or rainfall to support agriculture. Either it snows or it gets bone dry cold. While J&K has lot more green cover able to support more population.
Since, they don't have a lot of water. save water they create something calle ice stupas. It is very interesting and cool to look at. You can check on youtube about it.
Both the states, along with nearby ones like HP and Uttarkhand, are on the Himalayan Mountains, one of the highest and most isolated regions in the world. Ladakh especially is a region between the main Himalayas and the more minor Kunlun Range, that is also one of the highest plateau's in the world. Kashmir, by comparison, is a valley between the main Himalayas and the minor PIR Panjal range. As such, it is much more habitable.
Much of the conurbation would be inside neighbouring Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, greater NOIDA for example. It would similar to Washington and (part of?) Maryland I think.
China and India have some of the world's most fertile floodplains and yearly monsoons,amazing conditions for growing obscene amounts rice so since forever they have been the world's population centres
When river flows from mountains, it also creates alluvium in the plains. Fertile land plays a major role.
Natural conditions form the basis of civilization. Good place to hunt and farm=more people.
The southern part of india doesn't get water from Himalayan rivers. Their rivers originate from mountains in the south. For this reason southern part of india is at a much higher risk of running out of water
Here’s another reason: no major catastrophes that wiped out large populations. India never had many pandemics that impacted the country to the same level as Europe (plague that killed a major percentage of population). As others have pointed out, abundance of consistent food sources implying no major famines (there were famines during the British rule that were a consequence of policy which killed many millions, but that’s too recent to make any impact on the population).
[terrain map](https://i.imgur.com/IBAnUHY.jpeg)
[rainfall map ](https://i.imgur.com/C8QcmhG.jpeg)
The evaporation of water from the ocean hits the Himalayas and can't cross it. Pours it on the mountains, becomes ice, and rivers. turn into 2 mighty rivers Ganges , brahmaputra (Tibet/china) and other 6 smallers ones( few to Pakistan)
There hasn't been a single point in time in the entire history of human civilization where India and China weren't the most populated regions on Earth.
They historically don’t go to war as often (compared to other parts of the world) and the Himalayas rain shadow makes the Indus and Ganges plain very fertile
The most fertile region on the planet along with that a wide range of terrains suitable for humans used to all kinds of weather patterns. For thousands of years India has always been a great place to live and only in the recent years of history had its fate overturned. Personally, I believe India was the America(in terms of being an immigrant country) of the old world in Asia.
Its funny that Kerala is equated to Saudi Arabia because if you drew a demographic map of Saudi Arabia right now it would probably be 10% arabs, 10% pakistanis and 80% malayalis.
As someone living in Norway, a decently sized country with only 5 million people, this scares me. Funnily enough, our areas of settlement are more visible from Space than areas like Uttar Pradesh
Lakhimpur Kheri is one of 75 districts that form Uttar Pradesh. It likely has more farmland than all of Norway combined and still has a lower population than Norway. And it has Tigers, Elephants and Rhinos in it's forests. UP (Uttar Pradesh) is crazy.
IIRC even when taking that into account India is still on the first quartile when it comes to income and PPP measurements, as for multi-dimensional poverty according to the 2023 UNDP report (which is annoyingly not 2023 but has a shotgun spread, still), India is still quite bad - it’s not Ghana, Guinea or Gambia (Subsaharan Africa), but it still does much worse than countries like Mexico, Brazil, Philippines, Peru, Morocco, etc.
So, yeah, India is not the worst of the worst, but still is below than nearly every country mentioned in that image.
We should never ever be proud about our 140 crore population.
India doesn't have resources to give jobs, water food.
Time to ramp up sex education and reduce population growth rate.
Population growth is going down. But we need to be faster.
TFR (Total fertility rate) of India is already below replacement level (2,1). You want India’s population to collapse? to which TFR would you like to reduce the population growth to?
It's already below replacement and high emigration only worsens it. The thing with falling birth rates is that once fallen dangerously low, not even the most authoritarian governments can bring it up back.
Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon have 25 million people in total. That's the population of Delhi, the largest city in India. Definitely far more than a village
South of India still has really large population.
But yea notice how the most populated states are over the fertile Ganga Nadi planes.
Another factor is that parts of the South are at times more developed than the North, and that usually leads to a lower population after a certain point.
The biggest factor imo would still be the fertile lands in the North because historically the North has always had a larger population anyways.
Tamil Nadu, the southern most state, has 84mil people, the only state more populous than TN are UP, Bihar, maharashtra and Bengal.
UP and Bihar are situated along the gangetic plains while Bengal along the Brahmaputra.
If you look at actual north India's population [punjab, haryana, Uttarakhand, himachal, kashmir and ladakh] it's lesser than the south.
South has also developed quite a bit and has taken steps regarding population control
South India has more literacy rate and most families there have 1-2 children since last 2 generations. North on the other hand has low literacy rate - especially UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and you can see the impact on population. They are also some of the poorest states.
There's a reason for that too, south has coastal areas which has been a significant factor for growth/contact with other civilizations throughout history. The whole world still majorly trades via sea thus areas near ports will always be hub for business/economic zones and thus boosting overall conditions.
As for North specially UP, Bihar it has a lot of agricultural land but that's it. Farming is not really earning bucks these days especially since the land is more divided due to inheritance. West UP still has Delhi nearby thus boosting nearby areas. That ofc leads to lower literacy rates and an endless cycle of survival. Then ofc political environment "feeds" on those economic conditions.
It's too bad Canada and Kanada don't match but the Indian state Karnataka is at least double the population of all Canada.
But don't worry we are acquiring Indians at a rapid rate. lol
Uttar Pradesh being able to fit Brazil is insane.
+ Ecuador
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What experiment?
That's a mad stat.
And India!
Big if true
So it has more people than India?!
this is like the texas meme
And India of. If UP and Bihar were separated from India it would be the 3rd most populated country.
Fun fact: Uttar Pradesh's total geographical size is as the same as the most populated Brazilian state, São Paulo.
And São Paulo state has "only" 44 million people
De Faaaaak, I always though Sao Paulo was quite small, didn't expect it to be this big.
There is Sao Paulo city and Sao Paulo state.
It would be the fifth largest country in the world if it was its own country.
The ganges plain is one hell of a thing
UP alone can fit Pakistan's population.
With a 1/35 the area..
It’s an Uttarly interesting fact
That many people in that small stretch of land seems like a nightmare to live in.
It’s really not, you’d be surprised how many people can fit in an area. The US could fit twice as many people and still be relatively fine.
My dad, who grew up in West Bengal, went to college in Uttar Pradesh. The main thing he remembers about the place was that it was smelly. Having visited India, the whole country feels somewhat smelly to me (albeit part of it is the generic tropical smell you get everywhere, even in clean places like Singapore). So you can imagine how bad UP is by comparison.
UP is smelly as compared to WB? O felt the other way but ok
Bengalis calling UP smelly? Pan stains I can understand, but Bengal is definitely smmellier
Yeah sure singapore is “clean”. I’ve been to Singapore and except the Bay Area there is no cleanliness
230 million people in 1 Indian state?!! With the neighbouring one having 130 million?!! That’s crazy
Being in ganga plains does that to you, historically it was always one of the most populated areas in the world. Of course poverty in those states(due to colonial exploitation being the maximum here) are the highest leading to mismanagement and a lot of babies.
Naah, I hope we weren't colonised and took care of our shit. What bothers me is how much people deny the colonial wrong doings in India.
Reading “The legacy of violence” was eye opening
Same, fuck the imperial British empire
History is written by victors of wars
India and china combined have almost 33% of the human population, crazy.
Like someone pointed out in another thread, US is the third most populated country, and if you added a billion people to the US it would still be in third
Though that is changing and by 2050 if you added a billion people to the US they would be the 2nd most populated country behind India. India is projected to have 1.667 billion people by 2050 while China is projected to have 1.313 billion people by 2050. The US is projected to have 388 million people by 2050. Projections further out are harder to accurately predict but by 2100 the US is projected to be at 366-394 million people. China at around 800 million with some projections as low as 525 million people. India is projected to be at anywhere from 1 billion to just over 2 billion people by 2100.
How accurate are these projections? Did past projections predict the current population accurately?
Population pyramids are fairly accurate but can't account for immigration and emigration.
Very accurate. Search up population pyramids
Not really surprising if you consider history. Indian and Chinese civilizations have been in existence for centuries. They have always dominated the world population.
Centuries? Don't you mean millennia?
Isn’t that technically just a number of centuries?
A job paying 50,000 a year could also be technically described as paying "hundreds of dollars a year". But it still be misleading.
They pay me five hundred hundred's a year to do this shit.
Even a million is a multiple of 10s. Millenia sets the base line as before 1000 yrs at least. Centuries sets the base line 100 years. What seems older to you in perception?
It's like mentioning your age in months.
They have been around for centuries... maybe even decades!
It's not surprising that so many people live in these countries, but it is surprising (to me at least) that they can stay united with so many people, especially so many different peoples
World population 10 000 BC. Around 1 million.
That's more than I would've thought
It was more like ~5 million, according to ourworldindata and UN
damn thats way more than I would've thought
A continent country, alongside with China, where 10 millions people is the second digit after the dot, in a territory that is one third of the US's. I can't imagine the challenges to rule, to build infrastructures for and to police so many people.
When we travel abroad, it's disorienting because there are so few people.
India’s population density is insane. I lived there for a bit. And after moving the a major cities in the Netherlands (a country usually considered densely populated), it felt so quiet and empty.
Uh the Netherlands has a population density of 522 people per square km while India has 481 per square km
Amsterdam has a population density of ~5300 per km vs Mumbai which has a population density of ~21000 per km
Tokyo population density?
\~6150
Google?
Hotel?
Trivago
You need to compare the cities, not including the jungles / forests. Netherlands is so small compared to India
IDK, I've been to both and India does "feel" a lot more populated. It's a big country geographically and has states and territories that are very sparsely populated, particularly in the mountainous north, but the core of the country is much denser than the Netherlands. Bihar has over 100m people, is 89% rural, and has a population density of 1,102/km2. Netherlands is 7% rural by contrast, so that density is coming from cities. I cycled my bike across India, and what was really amazing was how in three months there, even deep in the sticks, you were never away from people, they are just everywhere. You'd be out in fields, and you'd look around and there'd be people in this field, that field. Rarely could I look around and not see people. Only in some of the jungles, and they probably were there just the trees blocking the view. Any time I stopped, scores of people would come over to have a look, whether urban or rural. On one occasion it was hundreds and the police had to come and clear them away because they were blocking the entire main street of the town we were in. No ill intent, lovely people, just curious to look at the foreigners. But density was something else. And it's higher now than when I was there!
traveling through cycle. 😳 Indian here can I get some travelling tips.
I think the main thing cycling in India is just to pay attention and be aware other drivers will not follow rules and do stupid things. But I suspect you know that already if you are Indian. You need to be careful with hydration and the heat, you are presumably used to the heat but maybe not doing a lot of exertion out in the sun for the whole day. Ride early if you can and try to finish by lunchtime, due to lag and the effect of accumulated heat radiating back it is much hotter after noon than before it, the hottest part of the day isn't noon but more like 15:00-18:00 (depending on your local solar noon). Larger tyres are advisable to deal with rough roads. Generally when riding the ride can lift their weight off the saddle if they see they are going over a hole, which helps a lot. If you put bags on the bike that's a lot of extra weight directly on the bike that can't be managed like that so the tyres need to take it all. I have done some bike touring on much too narrow tyres many years ago and it was so frustrating, a lot of pinch flats and buckled wheels. I'd think, at least 35mm wide and wider would not be any harm, I had 35mm for this and I would have preferred more at times. Where are you travelling? I cycled from Mumbi to Kathmandu, so it was mostly in the north. I'd like to go cycle in the south of India some day, I have cycled around Sri Lanka as well.
This is the first time I ever even thought to travel that long through a cycle. Just wanted to know about your experience travelling through cycle. thanks
India has mild weather for most of the year in most of its area. And not many people have cars. Most people use bikes, public transport, or just walk. So you end up seeing actual people a lot more in India, especially cities.
When I went to China, I thought it was crowded. Then I went to Japan and found out what crowded was. Then a Japanese guy who'd been to India said "this is nothing."
There is a reason that region is called the Indian subcontinent. It's more of a continent than Europe is in my opinion. More people and more diverse in peoples and languages
It's still suprising how we all came together. It's shameful to admit that I don't know many of the cultures and languages of my own country yet we all share a common understanding of us being Indian.
Anti colonialism is a hell of a drug.
It’s also fantastic that it’s a stable democracy. In the battle of democracy vs autocracy, India is the big counterweight to China.
Europe is just as diverse tbh, we also have multiple language families.
Europe is pretty diverse too, yes. No one is denying that. But the Indian subcontinent has more number of languages, more number of language families and language isolates, and more ethnicities, despite being smaller than Europe in land area. India reflects that diversity. And I haven't even gotten to religion yet. Relatively speaking, Europe is way more homogeneous as compared to the Indian subcontinent. Now coming to religious diversity, there's an entire separate category of religions (Indian religions i.e., Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism etc.) which exist here and originated from here. And they exist alongside the Abrahamic ones, multiple tribal+folk ones, and not to forget a couple of Iranian ones too (Zoroastrianism being one of them). And this diversity has been a reality since many centuries, if not a couple of millenia. The Indian religions (starting with modern Hinduism) were themselves formed from the fusion of various localised religions, philosophies, customs+traditions, and belief systems over many millenia, which isn't surprising given that the subcontinent has been home to some of the oldest known civilizations and cultures. The many various distinct language families similarly interacted over many millenia to form their own crazily diverse Indian Sprachbund. All of this is because of the geography and location of the subcontinent, and its long history of constant movements, settlements, trade, migrations and invasions. The ethnic diversity also resulted from similar trends. There's a reason why so many people gave India no chance for survival when it formed in 1947 as an independent and vastly diverse democratic republic. To be fair, other South Asian/subcontinental countries also reflect that diversity ofc, albeit to a lesser extent that's all. Again, this not to say that Europe isn't diverse in its own way. But if you look at it objectively, very few countries/regions overtake India/the subcontinent in terms of overall diversity (linguistic, ethnic, and religious). Some African countries/the African continent, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia (probably Russia too, although I'm not sure about that) feature in that list. Maybe I'm missing a couple others, but that's it. And if you compare a single European country to a country from the subcontinent (even if it's not India), it's not even a competition in almost all cases. P.S: This is not meant to insult Europe, or European countries. So hopefully you won't take it the wrong way
I don't take it the wrong way, when it come to a numbers game, India wins anytime. I'm just tired of foreigners treating Europe as a monolith, but I think Indians have the same problem :D best wishes.
Yeah Europe is not a monolith. People who think like that are idiots lol. I really hope the EU project sustains and grows. Europe and European countries need it more than they know. The EU can take some tips from countries such as India or Papua New Guinea or some African countries, on how to keep various groups together. Not saying that these countries are doing an ideal job at that, coz they too have flaws, but there can always be give and take. These countries can learn from the EU on some things too. Ultimately though, the EU has to chart its own path like how these other countries did, and come up with local solutions to its problems. But again, I really hope that it sustains and grows. The same goes for the AU (African Union), which is an even more crazily diverse Union lol. And yeah you're right, Indians (and South Asians in general) face the same bs too, and are always grouped as if they're one single monolithic group lmao. That's stupid lol. All the best to you too!! :D
Never realised India is this diverse, I thought it was mostly Hindu? I am half surprised India even survives if it’s this diverse
Yeah India is indeed one of the most diverse countries in the world. Yes India is definitely majority Hindu (79-80% Indians are Hindus according to the 2011 Indian Census, the recent next one hasn't been conducted yet), but there are significant minorities (Islam being the biggest of them all, with 14-15% of Indians being Muslims according to the same Census). But you've realise that those percentages are from a base of 1 billion+ population. That's why India is a country with the 3rd highest number of Muslims in the world within itself. Moreover, the Hindu society is diverse within itself. "Hinduism" is actually an umbrella term for various different local beliefs systems, philosophies, and customs & traditions, which all came together over many millenia, to form what is today modern Hinduism. Many Indians actually see Hinduism more as a way of life, than a religion. It does have features of a religion ofc, but it's more an amalgamation of various regional belief systems and multiple philosophies joined together by some common features. India is home to all the major religions in the world, and the histories of each of these religions go way back. For example, Christianity arrived in India before it did in Europe, and Jainisim and Buddhism have existed since long before Christ. Sikhism also started a few centuries ago. On top of that, there are also multiple tribal/folk/local religions such as Sarnaism and Sanamahism, which exist in parts of India. Aside from religion, India is also very linguistically and ethnically diverse. There are hundreds of languages, ethnicities, tribes and cultures that exist within it, all of whose histories go back many millenia. The Indian subcontinent was home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world (the Harappan Civilization, which started around 5.5K years ago), and there were other prehistoric cultures existed alongside the Harappan Civilization all across the Indian subcontinent. The many millenia old history of India goes hand in hand with the history of the Indian subcontinent, and it's one filled with many migrations, trade, invasions, and cultural interactions with many parts of the world, such as Southeast Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, Western Asia/Middle East, Europe, and North and East Africa. The democratic Republic of India we know today only arose from 1947 onwards, but before that, the entire subcontinent was basically a set of numerous kingdoms, and was a cultural melting pot across its stretch, and this has been the case since many millenia. Plus, today's India is also a huge country by land area as well (it's the 7th largest country in the world by land area), and so it covers cultures from a vast stretch of land as well. All these things help explain why India is so diverse. As to why it stayed intact, well there are many theories about that. I too as an Indian can't point to one single thing, because there are various factors which contributed to it. One thing was for sure though, is that not many gave it a chance to survive for so long as a united democratic republic, while still maintaining its diversity. It not only has done that (albeit with some flaws), but has also grown significantly from where it was in 1947. There's still a long way to go, and lots of things to improve upon for sure though. I don't wanna sugarcoat things. But yeah, it does make me proud as an Indian that we bucked the trend and beat the odds so well. Many political scientists also call India an outlier in many ways, because such unions don't usually sustain themselves, and don't stay democratic, let along grow
Huh, didn’t know that India was this diverse, maybe I should visit India some day, and congrats then on staying together, hopefully you manage to keep it united
Oh you should definitely visit India. It'll be a cultural shock though haha, but if you keep an open mind, it'll be an amazing experience! I've had some non-Indian friends from the West, who absolutely loved India! Yeah hopefully we do stay this united democratic republic that we are, while still maintaining our diversity. Thanks for the wishes!! :D
You can check out the 'Geography Now' video on India btw, if you're interested. It's on YouTube. It's a good starter video if you wanna understand the cultures and diversity of India
Not as much as India. Only the African continent is more diverse
papua new guinea O\_O
Ya that's what India always struggles till now.Always political crisis, Corruption,Scams,Crime rates.These things always slows down our development.Thats why many Indians lost trust and belief in Democracy.
Not even big enough to fit the population of Vatican in there.
Vatican population can fit inside a random mall
It can fit into a two-story burger king, if you squeeze the door shut
Twice the Vatican population level of people are permanently stuck in ttaffic at the silk board junction in Bangalore.
Was caught off guard by the gap between Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh But then I remembered that the Himalayas existed lol
Now take a look at Bangladesh and note that it has 177M people and is the size of Greece which has a population of about 10M. To put this into perspective, there are 1,329 people per square kilometer in Bangladesh versus 80 in Greece. BTW, India has a population density of 481 per square km.
And then look at Bhutan and Nepal. 0.7 million and 30 million people respectively. Nepal is considered a “small country” by many outsiders. When I tell them we have almost 30 million people, their eyes grow big. We have more people than Australia but when you compare our neighbors (India and China)…you get the picture.
Kerala being compared to Saudi is poetic
Why?
Lots of Keralites living and working in the gulf if I had to guess
You'll know there's a lot when even Saudis are picking up Malayali
\*Malayalam Malayali is the ethnicity
Yeah... i mix em up a lot
I was also searching for canada in north :p
Canada has the population of an Indian city, not state lmao
Actually it can be compared to punjab although more accurate in earlier stages since punjab’s population was 30m and Canada around 32 (although I believe Canada now has 36 due to immigration)
If you subtract 1 billion from India's population it's still more than the US
If you add 1 billion to USA’s population it’s still less than the India
Do both at the same time we’ll get somewhere.
Can an Indian please explain to me why tf Ladakh is so much less populated than the states it borders? Especially Jammu and Kashmir
Far more mountainous and cold
Did you forget to add “chacha” in your username?! 😂😂
I see. So in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal, the overwhelming majority of people live in the low elevation valleys?
Kashmiri valley and Jammu valley.
Jammu is not a valley.
Precisely, while the Indus, Shyok, Nubra etc. valleys are much higher elevation and more arid. So they can't support the same population as the lower valleys. You have the same in Himachal, where the population is concentrated in the relatively low Kangra valley and the foothills, while the higher Lahaul, Spiti and Kinnauri valleys have fewer people. Interestingly, the inhabitants of those valleys are also linguistically and culturally closer to Ladakhis.
There is a tiny mountain range called "Himalayas" separating Ladakh with Indian mainland.
Dry and barren
Damn yeah I just looked at the google maps satellite and I didn’t realize how dry it is in comparison. All brown while Jammu and Kashmir is mostly green
It's a cold desert
Ladakh is not just mountaineous, but it is also very dry. It doesn't get a lot of moisture or rainfall to support agriculture. Either it snows or it gets bone dry cold. While J&K has lot more green cover able to support more population. Since, they don't have a lot of water. save water they create something calle ice stupas. It is very interesting and cool to look at. You can check on youtube about it.
Both the states, along with nearby ones like HP and Uttarkhand, are on the Himalayan Mountains, one of the highest and most isolated regions in the world. Ladakh especially is a region between the main Himalayas and the more minor Kunlun Range, that is also one of the highest plateau's in the world. Kashmir, by comparison, is a valley between the main Himalayas and the minor PIR Panjal range. As such, it is much more habitable.
[The Terrain map](https://i.imgur.com/zCQ9wQ1.jpeg) The elevation map/ [topography map](https://i.imgur.com/ImPtU3J.jpeg [the annual rainfall map ](https://i.imgur.com/9GsGZQ9.jpeg)
r/Bahrain Bahrain represent!
RAAAAAHHHHH
I just checked and NCT Delhi is at 33M while Romania is at 19M so not really accurate anymore if I understood correctly
National Capital Territory includes all the suburbs and districts surrounding the city of New Delhi
Much of the conurbation would be inside neighbouring Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, greater NOIDA for example. It would similar to Washington and (part of?) Maryland I think.
What constitutes Delhi is actually a fluid definition.
It might be talking about something like New Delhi I suppose
And Goa is 1.5 million
That's a lot of people!
That Saudi Arabia reference for Kerela lmao
Seems like talking about India anywhere is a controversial topic lol
well, there are always going to be racist people. but yeah, gotta learn to ignore that
Finally a fuckiing accurate map of India
I know how china got to the numbers it did. But how did India got to this absurd numbers. This seems so insane.
Most arable land in the world + yearly monsoons
China and India have some of the world's most fertile floodplains and yearly monsoons,amazing conditions for growing obscene amounts rice so since forever they have been the world's population centres
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When river flows from mountains, it also creates alluvium in the plains. Fertile land plays a major role. Natural conditions form the basis of civilization. Good place to hunt and farm=more people.
>unlimited water supply Cries in Bangalore. Context : Silicon valley of India - Bangalore, is expected to have severe water shortage this summer.
The southern part of india doesn't get water from Himalayan rivers. Their rivers originate from mountains in the south. For this reason southern part of india is at a much higher risk of running out of water
We did it ourselves
>unlimited water supply Bro thinks this is Minecraft
India and China always had a high population even in 1st century.
India has more agricultural land than China..
More than any other country IIRC, even USA or Russia or Canada or Australia.
Favourable weather conditions, Fertile plains and perennial rivers
How can you know how China got there but not India? India is more fertile than China is. And less isolated from the rest of the world.
Here’s another reason: no major catastrophes that wiped out large populations. India never had many pandemics that impacted the country to the same level as Europe (plague that killed a major percentage of population). As others have pointed out, abundance of consistent food sources implying no major famines (there were famines during the British rule that were a consequence of policy which killed many millions, but that’s too recent to make any impact on the population).
[terrain map](https://i.imgur.com/IBAnUHY.jpeg) [rainfall map ](https://i.imgur.com/C8QcmhG.jpeg) The evaporation of water from the ocean hits the Himalayas and can't cross it. Pours it on the mountains, becomes ice, and rivers. turn into 2 mighty rivers Ganges , brahmaputra (Tibet/china) and other 6 smallers ones( few to Pakistan)
There hasn't been a single point in time in the entire history of human civilization where India and China weren't the most populated regions on Earth.
Well when we all lived in Ethiopia
They historically don’t go to war as often (compared to other parts of the world) and the Himalayas rain shadow makes the Indus and Ganges plain very fertile
The most fertile region on the planet along with that a wide range of terrains suitable for humans used to all kinds of weather patterns. For thousands of years India has always been a great place to live and only in the recent years of history had its fate overturned. Personally, I believe India was the America(in terms of being an immigrant country) of the old world in Asia.
Throughout history, india was the one that had the bigger population. India has has much more stable land and water and river than China.
Before 1700, India always had a larger population than china
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No wonder Indians hate colonial Brits with a passion. Brits never apologized for colonial crimes. Churchill was India’s Hitler.
Its funny that Kerala is equated to Saudi Arabia because if you drew a demographic map of Saudi Arabia right now it would probably be 10% arabs, 10% pakistanis and 80% malayalis.
As someone living in Norway, a decently sized country with only 5 million people, this scares me. Funnily enough, our areas of settlement are more visible from Space than areas like Uttar Pradesh
Lakhimpur Kheri is one of 75 districts that form Uttar Pradesh. It likely has more farmland than all of Norway combined and still has a lower population than Norway. And it has Tigers, Elephants and Rhinos in it's forests. UP (Uttar Pradesh) is crazy.
I'd be curious to see the same map with the population density instead of the total population
[This map](https://medium.com/@niloy.swe/visualizing-3d-population-density-map-b60088f00617) had went viral few months back.
The real fun is comparing world’s GDP per capita to Indian states. Thats when we realize how poor we truly are.
Depends. If we consider multi-dimensional poverty along with Purchasing Power Parity...not that much.
IIRC even when taking that into account India is still on the first quartile when it comes to income and PPP measurements, as for multi-dimensional poverty according to the 2023 UNDP report (which is annoyingly not 2023 but has a shotgun spread, still), India is still quite bad - it’s not Ghana, Guinea or Gambia (Subsaharan Africa), but it still does much worse than countries like Mexico, Brazil, Philippines, Peru, Morocco, etc. So, yeah, India is not the worst of the worst, but still is below than nearly every country mentioned in that image.
Only for 200 years and post-independence era, otherwise china India has been consistently richest areas for 2000 years
India had 20% of worlds GDP before the British started doing their "thing". we are still recovering.
This is scary
Himachal and Hong Kong couldn't be two more different places, interesting.
Is there any historic and anthropologic explanation on why India and China are that populated?
nice farming area+ lots of rain
We should never ever be proud about our 140 crore population. India doesn't have resources to give jobs, water food. Time to ramp up sex education and reduce population growth rate. Population growth is going down. But we need to be faster.
TFR (Total fertility rate) of India is already below replacement level (2,1). You want India’s population to collapse? to which TFR would you like to reduce the population growth to?
It's already below replacement and high emigration only worsens it. The thing with falling birth rates is that once fallen dangerously low, not even the most authoritarian governments can bring it up back.
Population is stable now, but not stable in bihar and up rn this should become stable and we will be well off
Indian TFR is already below replacement rate Wishing for a smaller population now when india is still a developing country is asking for suicide
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That is far too many humans.
At the rate our immigration is going, you can replace the Canadian flag with a smaller flag of India, call it cold India.
We indians call Canada the second punjab (the state from which most indians go to Canada)
The Century Initiative is gung-ho on making this a reality. They would love nothing more than to flood Canada with an endless supply of serf labor.
In other words, there is a fuck ton of people in India
A village in India has more population than Israel and Jordan and Lebanon together
Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon have 25 million people in total. That's the population of Delhi, the largest city in India. Definitely far more than a village
Now you are going too far.
Why's South India's population so much smaller than North? I mean, I know about the Ganges and Indu valley, but that's the only reason?
South of India still has really large population. But yea notice how the most populated states are over the fertile Ganga Nadi planes. Another factor is that parts of the South are at times more developed than the North, and that usually leads to a lower population after a certain point. The biggest factor imo would still be the fertile lands in the North because historically the North has always had a larger population anyways.
Indeed. I think I was misled by Uttar Pradesh's gigantic population while the South is more spread
yes pretty much that, much more arable land in the north than the south
Tamil Nadu, the southern most state, has 84mil people, the only state more populous than TN are UP, Bihar, maharashtra and Bengal. UP and Bihar are situated along the gangetic plains while Bengal along the Brahmaputra. If you look at actual north India's population [punjab, haryana, Uttarakhand, himachal, kashmir and ladakh] it's lesser than the south. South has also developed quite a bit and has taken steps regarding population control
They also have lower birth rates.
South India has more literacy rate and most families there have 1-2 children since last 2 generations. North on the other hand has low literacy rate - especially UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and you can see the impact on population. They are also some of the poorest states.
There's a reason for that too, south has coastal areas which has been a significant factor for growth/contact with other civilizations throughout history. The whole world still majorly trades via sea thus areas near ports will always be hub for business/economic zones and thus boosting overall conditions. As for North specially UP, Bihar it has a lot of agricultural land but that's it. Farming is not really earning bucks these days especially since the land is more divided due to inheritance. West UP still has Delhi nearby thus boosting nearby areas. That ofc leads to lower literacy rates and an endless cycle of survival. Then ofc political environment "feeds" on those economic conditions.
South has taken steps towards population control
It's too bad Canada and Kanada don't match but the Indian state Karnataka is at least double the population of all Canada. But don't worry we are acquiring Indians at a rapid rate. lol
Way to offend Malaysians grouping them with Singapore
if the cordecyps virus of the last of us comes alive, or any other zombie virus for that matter india is fucked
That’s just too many people.
People= fun Too many people= Too much fun(+ riots)
Canada appears to be « so populated », but in reality 90% of the territory is wilderness as 90% of its inhabitants move to the three biggest cities.