Everything you need to know about India
India is a country you arrive in rather than visit: 28 states drawn along the lines of the languages spoken in them, a monsoon that sets the year, and a train network that will carry you between the two. Learn the shape of it, the facts that make daily life legible, and the first 101 words of whichever of its ten languages you are going to be living in.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of India
The Himalayas wall off the north, the rivers below them feed one of the most crowded plains on Earth, and the old Deccan Plateau fills the peninsula. Across all three, the southwest monsoon arriving in June decides the agricultural year.
Know the shape of the country
Three maps of India itself, drawn from the same files the rounds are played on. The states are the frame everything else sits in; the cities and the rivers that put most of them where they are go inside it.
Places worth visiting
Essential ยท Mausoleum
Taj Mahal
Shah Jahanโs white marble tomb for Mumtaz Mahal. Visit at sunrise, when the marble glows pink.
Pair Delhi and the Taj Mahal with the river city of Varanasi and the backwaters of Kerala, then go further into the Himalaya and the temple towns of the south. Essential is our shortlist for a first trip, and worth a detour goes further. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Hindi with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of India, the countries in white have a guide like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
Asia
- Afghanistan
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Israel
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mongolia
- Myanmar
- Nepal
- North Korea
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestine
- Philippines
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Syria
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste
- Turkmenistan
- United Arab Emirates
- Uzbekistan
- Vietnam
- Yemen
Europe
- Albania
- Andorra
- Armenia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
- Kosovo
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Netherlands
- North Macedonia
- Northern Cyprus
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Tรผrkiye
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- Vatican City
North America
Africa
- Algeria
- Angola
- Benin
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Cรดte dโIvoire
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Kenya
- Liberia
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Mali
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Republic of the Congo
- Rwanda
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- Somaliland
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Tanzania
- Togo
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Western Sahara
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe