ong>Explanation:

India is one of the ancient civilisations in the world. It has achieved multi-faceted socioeconomic progress during the last five decades. It has moved forward displaying remarkable progress in the field of agriculture, industry, technology and overall economic development. India has also contributed significantly to the making of world history.

Location

India is a vast COUNTRY. Lying entirely in the Northern hemisphere the main land extends between latitudes 8°4’N and 37°6’N and longitudes 68°7’E and 97°25’E.

The Tropic of CANCER (23° 30’N) divides the country into almost two equal parts.

To the southeast and southwest of the mainland, lie the ANDAMAN and Nicobar islands and the Lakshadweep islands in Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea respectively.

Find out the EXTENT of these groups of islands from your atlas.

Size

The land mass of India has an area of 3.28 million square km.

India’s total area accounts for about 2.4 per cent of the total geographical area of the world.

India is the seventh largest country of the world.

India has a land boundary of about 15,200 km and the total length of the coast line of the mainland including Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep is 7,516.6 km.

India is bounded by the young fold mountains in the northwest, NORTH and north east.

South of about 22° north latitude, it begins to taper, and extends towards the Indian Ocean, dividing it into two seas, the Arabian Sea on the west and the Bay of Bengal on its east.

Look at Figure 1.3 and note that the latitudinal and longitudinal extent of the mainland is about 30°. Despite this fact the east-west extent appears to be smaller than the north-south extent.