Indian subcontinent

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"The Subcontinent" redirects here. For other uses, see Continent § Subcontinents.
Indian subcontinent

4.4 million km2 (1.7 million sq

Area
mi)
Population 1.710 billion (2015)[1]
Population
389/km2
density
Bangladesh
Bhutan
India
Countries Maldives
Nepal
Pakistan
Sri Lanka

The Indian subcontinent is a southern region and peninsula of Asia, mostly situated on the
Indian Plate and projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas.
Geologically, the Indian subcontinent is related to the land mass that rifted from Gondwana
and merged with the Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago.[2] Geographically, it is the
peninsular region in south-central Asia delineated by the Himalayas in the north, the Hindu
Kush in the west, and the Arakanese in the east.[3] Politically, the Indian subcontinent
includes all or part of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka.[4][5][6]

Sometimes, the geographical term 'Indian subcontinent' is used interchangeably with 'South
Asia',[7] although that last term is used typically as a political term and is also used to include
Afghanistan.[8] Which countries should be included in either of these remains the subject of
debate.[9][10][11]

Contents
 1 Name
 2 Definition
o 2.1 Geology
o 2.2 Socio-cultural sphere
 3 Past and future population
 4 Land and water area
 5 See also
 6 References

Name
According to Oxford English Dictionary, the term "subcontinent" signifies a "subdivision of a
continent which has a distinct geographical, political, or cultural identity" and also a "large
land mass somewhat smaller than a continent". It is first attested in 1845 to refer to the North
and South Americas, before they were regarded as separate continents. Its use to refer to the
Indian subcontinent is seen from the early twentieth century. It was especially convenient for
referring to the region comprising both British India and the princely states under British
Paramountcy.[12][13]

The term Indian subcontinent also has a geological significance. Similar to various
continents, it was a part of the supercontinent of Gondwana. A series of tectonic splits caused
formation of various basins, each drifting in various directions. The geological region called
"Greater India" once included Madagascar, Seychelles, Antarctica and Austrolasia along with
the Indian subcontinent basin. As a geological term, Indian subcontinent has meant that
region formed from the collision of the Indian basin with Eurasia nearly 55 million years ago,
towards the end of Paleocene.[2][14]

The geographical region has historically simply been known as "India" (in antiquity referring
to the Indus Valley region, not the entire subcontinent). Other related terms are Greater India
and South Asia.[15][16] And the terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are sometimes
used interchangeably.[7] There is no globally accepted definition on which countries are a part
of South Asia or the Indian subcontinent.[9][11][10] The less common term "South Asian
subcontinent" has seen occasional use since the 1970s.[17]

Definition
Orthographic projection of the Indian subcontinent

Geology

Geologically, the Indian subcontinent was first a part of so-called "Greater India",[14] a region
of Gondwana that drifted away from East Africa about 160 million years ago, around the
Middle Jurassic period.[2] The region experienced high volcanic activity and plate
subdivisions, creating Madagascar, Seychelles, Antarctica, Austrolasia and the Indian
subcontinent basin. The Indian subcontinent drifted northeastwards, colliding with the
Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Paleocene. This geological
region largely includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka.[2] The zone where the Eurasian and Indian subcontinent plates meet remains
geologically active, prone to major earthquakes.[18][19]

The English term "subcontinent" mainly continues to refer to the Indian subcontinent.[20][21]
Physiographically, it is a peninsular region in south-central Asia delineated by the Himalayas
in the north, the Hindu Kush in the west, and the Arakanese in the east.[3][22] It extends
southward into the Indian Ocean with the Arabian Sea to the southwest and the Bay of
Bengal to the southeast.[4][23] Most of this region rests on the Indian Plate and is isolated from
the rest of Asia by large mountain barriers.[24]

Using the more expansive definition – counting India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives as the constituent countries – the Indian subcontinent covers
about 4.4 million km2 (1.7 million sq mi), which is 10% of the Asian continent or 3.3% of the
world's land surface area.[25][26] Overall, it accounts for about 45% of Asia's population and
over 25% of the world's population, and it is home to a vast array of peoples.[25][27][28]

Socio-cultural sphere
Historical transmission routes of Buddhism from India to Central Asia, East Asia and
Southeast Asia

Urban map of South Asia

The Indian subcontinent is a natural physical landmass in South Asia, geologically the dry-
land portion of the Indian Plate, which has been relatively isolated from the rest of Eurasia.[29]
Given the difficulty of passage through the Himalayas, the sociocultural, religious and
political interaction of the Indian subcontinent has largely been through the valleys of
Afghanistan in its northwest,[30] the valleys of Manipur in its east, and by maritime routes.[29]
More difficult but historically important interaction has also occurred through passages
pioneered by the Tibetans. These routes and interactions have led to the spread of Buddhism
out of the Indian subcontinent into other parts of Asia. And the Islamic expansion arrived into
the Indian subcontinent in two ways, through Afghanistan on land and to Indian coast
through the maritime routes on the Arabian Sea.[29]

Whether called the Indian subcontinent or South Asia, the definition of the geographical
extent of this region varies. Geopolitically, it had formed the whole territory of Greater
India.[15][16] In terms of modern geopolitical boundaries, the Indian subcontinent comprises
the Republic of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, besides, by convention, the
island nation of Sri Lanka and other islands of the Indian Ocean,[5] such as the
Maldives.[6][31][32] The term "Indian continent" is first introduced in the early 20th century,
when most of the territory was part of British India.[33]

The Hindu Kush, centered on eastern Afghanistan, is the boundary connecting the Indian
subcontinent with Central Asia to the northwest, and the Persian Plateau to the west. The
socio-religious history of Afghanistan are related to the Turkish-influenced Central Asia and
northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent, now known as Pakistan.[34][35] Others state
Afghanistan being a part of Central Asia is not an accepted practice, and it is "clearly not part
of the Indian subcontinent".[9]

The precise definition of an "Indian subcontinent" as opposed to "South Asia" in a

geopolitical context is somewhat contested.[9][11][36]

Past and future population

Main article: List of countries by past and future population

 The list of countries by past and future population provides 1950, 2000 and 2050
population while the population for the year 2100 is taken from United Nations
projections[citation needed].

Area
Rank Country 1950 2000 2050 2100
(km2)
1 India 3,287,263 369,881,000 1,006,301,000 1,656,554,000 1,659,786,000
2 Pakistan 881,913 40,383,000 152,430,000 300,848,000 364,283,000
3 Bangladesh 147,570 45,646,000 132,151,000 201,249,000 169,541,000
4 Nepal 147,181 8,990,000 24,819,000 36,107,000 29,677,000
5 Sri Lanka 65,610 7,534,000 19,042,000 25,167,000 14,857,000
6 Bhutan 38,394 164,000 606,000 952,000 793,000
7 Maldives 298 80,000 300,000 445,000 438,000
Total 4,568,229 480,829,000 1,358,111,000 2,294,996,000 2,297,013,000

Land and water area

NASA images of the Indian subcontinent during day and night.
Main articles: Exclusive economic zone and Indian Ocean

This list includes dependent territories within their sovereign states (including uninhabited
territories), but does not include claims on Antarctica. EEZ+TIA is exclusive economic zone
(EEZ) plus total internal area (TIA) which includes land and internal waters.

Rank Country Area (km2) EEZ Shelf EEZ+TIA

1 India 3,287,263 2,305,143 402,996 5,592,406
2 Pakistan 796,095 290,000 51,383 1,117,911
3 Bangladesh 147,570 86,392 66,438 230,390
4 Nepal 147,181 0 0 147,181
5 Sri Lanka 65,610 532,619 32,453 598,229
6 Bhutan 38,394 0 0 38,394
7 Maldives 298 923,322 34,538 923,622
Total 4,482,411 4,137,476 587,808 9,300,997

See also
 Geography of South Asia

References
1.

 "World Population Prospects". United Nations: Population Division. 2017.

  Robert Wynn Jones (2011). Applications of Palaeontology: Techniques and Case
Studies. Cambridge University Press. pp. 267–271. ISBN 978-1-139-49920-0.
  Baker, Kathleen M.; Chapman, Graham P. (11 March 2002), The Changing Geography
of Asia, Routledge, pp. 10–, ISBN 978-1-134-93384-6, This greater India is well defined in
terms of topography; it is the Indian sub-continent, hemmed in by the Himalayas on the
north, the Hindu Khush in the west and the Arakanese in the east.
  "Indian subcontinent". New Oxford Dictionary of English (ISBN 0-19-860441-6) New
York: Oxford University Press, 2001; p. 929: "the part of Asia south of the Himalayas which
forms a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of
Bengal. Historically forming the whole territory of Greater India, the region is now divided
into three countries named Bangladesh, India and Pakistan."
  Dhavendra Kumar (2012). Genomics and Health in the Developing World. Oxford
University Press. p. 889. ISBN 978-0-19-537475-9.
  Mariam Pirbhai (2009). Mythologies of Migration, Vocabularies of Indenture: Novels of
the South Asian Diaspora in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific. University of Toronto
Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-8020-9964-8.
  John McLeod, The history of India, page 1, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002,
ISBN 0-313-31459-4; note: McLeod does not include Afghanistan in Indian subcontinent or
South Asia;
Jim Norwine & Alfonso González, The Third World: states of mind and being, pages 209,
Taylor & Francis, 1988, ISBN 0-04-910121-8
Raj S. Bhopal, Ethnicity, race, and health in multicultural societies, pages 33, Oxford
University Press, 2007, ISBN 0-19-856817-7; Quote: "The term South Asian refers to
populations originating from the Indian subcontinent, effectively India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Sri Lanka;
Lucian W. Pye & Mary W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics, pages 133, Harvard University
Press, 1985, ISBN 0-674-04979-9
Mark Juergensmeyer, The Oxford handbook of global religions, pages 465, Oxford
University Press US, 2006, ISBN 0-19-513798-1
Sugata Bose & Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia, pages 3, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-
30787-2
  As for example it is in the South Asian Games and the 8-nation South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), an economic cooperation organisation in the region,
established in 1985, and ; SAARC Summit. "SAARC". SAARC Summit. Retrieved 17
December 2013.
  Ewan W. Anderson; Liam D. Anderson (2013). An Atlas of Middle Eastern Affairs.
Routledge. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-136-64862-5., Quote: "To the east, Iran, as a Gulf state, offers a
generally accepted limit to the Middle East. However, Afghanistan, also a Muslim state, is
then left in isolation. It is not accepted as a part of Central Asia and it is clearly not part of the
Indian subcontinent".
  Michael Mann (2014). South Asia's Modern History: Thematic Perspectives. Taylor &
Francis. pp. 13–15. ISBN 978-1-317-62445-5.
  Jona Razzaque (2004). Public Interest Environmental Litigation in India, Pakistan, and
Bangladesh. Kluwer Law International. pp. 3 with footnotes 1 and 2. ISBN 978-90-411-2214-
8.
  "subcontinent". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
September 2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  "Indian subcontinent". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
September 2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
 Hinsbergen, D. J. J. van; Lippert, P. C.; Dupont-Nivet, G.; McQuarrie, N.; Doubrovine; et
al. (2012). "Greater India Basin hypothesis and a two-stage Cenozoic collision between India
and Asia". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (20): 7659–7664, for
geologic Indian subcontinent see Figure 1. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109.7659V.
doi:10.1073/pnas.1117262109.
 PMC 3356651. PMID 22547792.
  Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby, Religions of South Asia: An Introduction, page 3,
Routledge, 2006, ISBN 9781134593224
  Kathleen M. Baker and Graham P. Chapman, The Changing Geography of Asia, page
10, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 9781134933846
  Official Records: Proces-verbaux Officiels. Supplement. Supplement 1624-1683, United
Nations, 1972, p. 38.
  Bethany D. Rinard Hinga (2015). Ring of Fire: An Encyclopedia of the Pacific Rim's
Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes. ABC-CLIO. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-1-61069-297-7.
  Alexander E. Gates; David Ritchie (2006). Encyclopedia of Earthquakes and Volcanoes.
Infobase. pp. 116–118. ISBN 978-0-8160-7270-5.
  McLeod, John (1 January 2002). The History of India. Greenwood Publishing Group.
ISBN 9780313314599 – via Google Books.
  Milton Walter Meyer, South Asia: A Short History of the Subcontinent, pages 1, Adams
Littlefield, 1976, ISBN 0-8226-0034-X
  Dhavendra Kumar (2012). Genomics and Health in the Developing World. Oxford
University Press. pp. 889–890. ISBN 978-0-19-537475-9.
  John McLeod, The history of India, page 1, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002,
ISBN 0-313-31459-4
  "Asia" > Geologic history – Tectonic framework. Encyclopædia Britannica.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2009: "The paleotectonic evolution of Asia terminated
some 50 million years ago as a result of the collision of the Indian subcontinent with Eurasia.
Asia’s subsequent neotectonic development has largely disrupted the continents pre-existing
fabric. The neotectonic units of Asia are Stable Asia, the Arabian and Indian cratons, the
Alpide plate boundary zone (along which the Arabian and Indian platforms have collided
with the Eurasian continental plate), and the island arcs and marginal basins."
  Desai, Praful B. 2002. Cancer control efforts in the Indian subcontinent. Japanese
Journal of Clinical Oncology. 32 (Supplement 1): S13-S16. "The Indian subcontinent in
South Asia occupies 2.4% of the world land mass and is home to 16.5% of the world
population...."
  "Indian Subcontinent" in Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. Macmillan Reference USA
(Gale Group), 2006: "The area is divided between five major nation-states, Bangladesh,
India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and includes as well the two small nations of Bhutan
and the Maldives Republic... The total area can be estimated at 4.4 million square kilometres,
or exactly 10 percent of the land surface of Asia... In 2000, the total population was about 22
percent of the world's population and 34 percent of the population of Asia."
  "Asia" > Overview. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2009:
"The Indian subcontinent is home to a vast diversity of peoples, most of whom speak
languages from the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European family."
  "Indian Subcontinent", in Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. Macmillan Reference USA
(Gale Group), 2006: "The total area can be estimated at 4.4 million square kilometres, or
exactly 10 percent of the land surface of Asia... In 2000, the total population was about 22
percent of the world's population and 34 percent of the population of Asia."
  Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006), India Before Europe, Cambridge
University Press, pp. 5–8, 12–14, 51, 78–80, ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7
  John L. Esposito; Emad El-Din Shahin (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Islam and
Politics. Oxford University Press. pp. 453–456. ISBN 978-0-19-063193-2.
  John McLeod, The history of India, page 1, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002,
ISBN 0-313-31459-4
Stephen Adolphe Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler & Darrell T. Tryon, Atlas of languages of
intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, pages 787, International
Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies, Published by Walter de Gruyter, 1996,
ISBN 3-11-013417-9
Haggett, Peter (2001). Encyclopedia of World Geography (Vol. 1). Marshall Cavendish.
p. 2710. ISBN 0-7614-7289-4.
  "the Indian Subcontinent occupies the major landmass of South Asia" John R. Lukacs,
The People of South Asia: the biological anthropology of India, Pakistan, and Nepal, page
59, Plenum Press, 1984, ISBN 9780306414077. "the seven countries of South Asia constitute
geographically a compact region around the Indian Subcontinent".Tatu Vanhanen Prospects
of Democracy: A Study of 172 Countries, page 144, Routledge, 1997, ISBN 9780415144063
  "Indian subcontinent" is used by Henry D. Baker, British India With Notes On Ceylon
Afghanistan And Tibet (1915), p. 401.
  Ira M. Lapidus (2014). A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge University Press.
pp. 269, 698–699. ISBN 978-0-521-51430-9.
  Louis D Hayes (2014). The Islamic State in the Post-Modern World: The Political
Experience of Pakistan. Ashgate. pp. 55–56. ISBN 978-1-4724-1262-1.;
Robert Wuthnow (2013). The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion. Routledge. pp. 11–.
ISBN 978-1-136-28493-9.

36.  Akhilesh Pillalamarri, South Asia or India: An Old Debate Resurfaces in

California, The Diplomat, 24 May 2016; Ahmed, Mukhtar (2014), Ancient Pakistan –
An Archaeological History: Volume II: A Prelude to Civilization, Foursome, p. 14,
ISBN 978-1-4959-4130-6

37.

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