India – GENERAL INFORMATION – Facts and Figures

Facts and Figures

Full name:  India

Nationality 
       
noun: Indian(s)

        adjective: Indian

Flag:

Area        total: 3,287,590 sq km        land: 2,973,190 sq km

        water: 314,400 sq km

Population: 1,080,264,388 (July 2005 est.)

Ethnic groups
        Indo-Aryan 72%

        Dravidian 25%        Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)

Capital: New Delhi – 9,820,000

Largest Cities
        Mumbay(Bombay) – 11,920,000

        Kolkata – 4,580,000        Bangalore – 4,290,000

Official Language:  English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language 

Religion
        Hindu 81.3%

        Muslim 12%        Christian 2.3%        Sikh 1.9%        Other groups including Buddhist        Jain        Parsi 2.5% (2000) 

Political system: federal republic

GDP: purchasing power parity – $3.319 trillion (2004 est.)  


GDP per head:
purchasing power parity – $3,100 (2004 est.) 

Annual growth:
 6.2% (2004 est.)  

GDP – composition by sector
        agriculture: 23.6%

        industry: 28.4%        services: 48% (2002 est.)

Inflation: 4.2% (2004 est.)