India (
i//), officially the
Republic of India (
Bharat Ganrajya),
[13][c] is a country in
South Asia. It is the
seventh-largest country by area, the
second-most populous country with
over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous
democracy in the world. Bounded by the
Indian Ocean on the south, the
Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the
Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with
Pakistan to the west;
[d] China,
Nepal, and
Bhutan to the north-east; and
Burma and
Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of
Sri Lanka and the
Maldives; in addition, India's
Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with
Thailand and
Indonesia.
Etymology
Main article:
Names of India
The name
India is derived from
Indus, which originates from the
Old Persian word
Hinduš. The latter term stems from the
Sanskrit word
Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the
Indus River. The
ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as
Indoi (Ινδοί), which translates as "the people of the Indus". The geographical term
Bharat (
pronounced [ˈbʱaːrət̪] ( listen)), which is recognised by the
Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by
many Indian languages in its variations.
[20] The
eponym of
Bharat is
Bharata, a theological figure that Hindu scriptures describe as a legendary emperor of ancient India.
Hindustan (
[ɦɪnd̪ʊˈst̪aːn] ( listen)) was originally a
Persian word that meant "Land of the Hindus"; prior to 1947, it referred to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan. It is occasionally used to solely denote India in its entirety.