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South Asia

This article is about the geographical subregion of Asia. For the physiographical region of Eurasia, see Indian subcontinent.
For other uses, see Southern Asia.

South Asia
Area5,222,321 km2 (2,016,349 sq mi)
Population2.04 billion (2024)[1]
Population density362.3/km2 (938/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)$18.05 trillion (2024)[2]
GDP (nominal)$5.04 trillion (2024)[3]
GDP per capita$2,650 (nominal) (2024)
$9,470 (PPP) (2024)[4]
HDIIncrease 0.641 (2019) (medium)[5]
Ethnic groupsIndo-Aryan, Iranian, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, Austroasiatic, Turkic etc.
ReligionsHinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Irreligion
Demonym
Countries
Dependencies
Languages
Official languages (national level)
Other official languages (provincial/regional level)
Time zones
5 time zones
Internet TLD.af, .bd, .bt, .in, .io, .lk, .mv, .np, .pk
Calling codeZone 8 & 9
Largest cities
UN M49 code034 – Southern Asia
142 – Asia
001 – World

South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethnic-cultural terms. With a population of 2.04 billion living in South Asia, it contains a quarter (25%) of the world's population. As commonly conceptualized, the modern states of South Asia include Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, with Afghanistan also often included, which may otherwise be classified as part of Central Asia.[6][7] South Asia borders East Asia to the northeast, Central Asia to the northwest, West Asia to the west and Southeast Asia to the east. Apart from Southeast Asia, Maritime South Asia is the only subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. The British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of 26 atolls of the Maldives in South Asia lie entirely within the Southern Hemisphere. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian subcontinent and is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south, and the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Pamir Mountains in the north.[8]

Settled life emerged on the Indian subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river basin 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus Valley Civilisation of the third millennium BCE.[9] By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest,[10][11] with the Dravidian languages being supplanted in the northern and western regions.[12] By 400 BCE, stratification and exclusion by caste had emerged within Hinduism,[13] and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.[14]

In the early medieval era, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism became established on South Asia's southern and western coasts.[15] Muslim armies from Central Asia intermittently overran the plains of northern India,[16] eventually founding the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th century, and drawing the region into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.[17] The Mughal Empire, in 1526, ushered in two centuries of relative peace,[18] leaving a legacy of luminous architecture.[a][19] Gradually expanding rule of the British East India Company followed, turning most of South Asia into a colonial economy, but also consolidating its sovereignty.[20] British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly,[21][22] but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and the public life took root.[23] In 1947 the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions,[24][25][26][27] a Hindu-majority Dominion of India and a Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, amid large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration.[28] The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, a Cold War episode resulting in East Pakistan's secession, continues to impact South Asian geopolitics.[29]

South Asia has a total area of 5.2 million sq.km (2 million sq.mi), which is 10% of the Asian continent.[30] The population of South Asia is estimated to be 1.94 billion or about one-fourth of the world's population, making it both the most populous and the most densely populated geographical region in the world.[31]

In 2022, South Asia had the world's largest populations of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, and Zoroastrians.[32] South Asia alone accounts for 90.47% of Hindus, 95.5% of Sikhs, and 31% of Muslims worldwide, as well as 35 million Christians and 25 million Buddhists.[33][34][35][36]

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic cooperation organization in the region which was established in 1985 and includes all eight nations comprising South Asia.[37]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference UN WPP 2019 2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "GDP, current prices". International Monetary Fund.
  3. ^ "GDP, current prices, Purchasing power parity; billions of international dollars, Billions of U.S. dollars". International Monetary Fund.
  4. ^ "GDP per capita, current prices". International Monetary Fund.
  5. ^ "Human Development Report 2020 – "Human Development Indices and Indicators"" (PDF). HDRO (Human Development Report Office) United Nations Development Programme. p. 346. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
  6. ^ Saez 2012, p. 58: "Afghanistan is considered to be part of Central Asia. It regards itself as a link between Central Asia and South Asia."
  7. ^ "South Asia". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 1 April 2023.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ (a) Dyson 2018, pp. 4–5; (b) Fisher 2018, p. 33
  10. ^ Lowe, John J. (2015). Participles in Rigvedic Sanskrit: The syntax and semantics of adjectival verb forms. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-0-19-100505-3. (The Rigveda) consists of 1,028 hymns (suktas), highly crafted poetic compositions originally intended for recital during rituals and for the invocation of and communication with the Indo-Aryan gods. Modern scholarly opinion largely agrees that these hymns were composed between around 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, during the eastward migration of the Indo-Aryan tribes from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across the Punjab into north India.
  11. ^ (a) Witzel, Michael (2008). "Vedas and Upanisads". In Gavin Flood (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 68–70. ISBN 978-0-470-99868-7. It is known from internal evidence that the Vedic texts were orally composed in northern India, at first in the Greater Punjab and later on also in more eastern areas, including northern Bihar, between ca. 1500 BCE and ca. 500–400 BCE. The oldest text, the Rgveda, must have been more or less contemporary with the Mitanni texts of northern Syria/Iraq (1450–1350 BCE); ... The Vedic texts were orally composed and transmitted, without the use of script, in an unbroken line of transmission from teacher to student that was formalised early on. This ensured an impeccable textual transmission superior to the classical texts of other cultures; it is in fact something of a tape-recording of ca. 1500–500 BCE. Not just the actual words, but even the long-lost musical (tonal) accent (as in old Greek or in Japanese) has been preserved up to the present. (pp. 68–69) ... The RV text was composed before the introduction and massive use of iron, that is before ca. 1200–1000 BCE. (p. 70) (b) Doniger, Wendy (2014), On Hinduism, Oxford University Press, pp. xviii, 10, ISBN 978-0-19-936009-3, A Chronology of Hinduism: ca. 1500–1000 BCE Rig Veda; ca. 1200–900 BCE Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Atharva Veda (p. xviii); Hindu texts began with the Rig Veda ('Knowledge of Verses'), composed in northwest India around 1500 BCE (p. 10) (c) Ludden 2014, p. 19, "In Punjab, a dry region with grasslands watered by five rivers (hence 'panch' and 'ab') draining the western Himalayas, one prehistoric culture left no material remains, but some of its ritual texts were preserved orally over the millennia. The culture is called Aryan, and evidence in its texts indicates that it spread slowly south-east, following the course of the Yamuna and Ganga Rivers. Its elite called itself Arya (pure) and distinguished themselves sharply from others. Aryans led kin groups organized as nomadic horse-herding tribes. Their ritual texts are called Vedas, composed in Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit is recorded only in hymns that were part of Vedic rituals to Aryan gods. To be Aryan apparently meant to belong to the elite among pastoral tribes. Texts that record Aryan culture are not precisely datable, but they seem to begin around 1200 BCE with four collections of Vedic hymns (Rg, Sama, Yajur, and Artharva)." (d) Dyson 2018, pp. 14–15, "Although the collapse of the Indus valley civilization is no longer believed to have been due to an 'Aryan invasion' it is widely thought that, at roughly the same time, or perhaps a few centuries later, new Indo-Aryan-speaking people and influences began to enter the subcontinent from the north-west. Detailed evidence is lacking. Nevertheless, a predecessor of the language that would eventually be called Sanskrit was probably introduced into the north-west sometime between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago. This language was related to one then spoken in eastern Iran; and both of these languages belonged to the Indo-European language family. ... It seems likely that various small-scale migrations were involved in the gradual introduction of the predecessor language and associated cultural characteristics. However, there may not have been a tight relationship between movements of people on the one hand, and changes in language and culture on the other. Moreover, the process whereby a dynamic new force gradually arose—a people with a distinct ideology who eventually seem to have referred to themselves as 'Arya'—was certainly two-way. That is, it involved a blending of new features which came from outside with other features—probably including some surviving Harappan influences—that were already present. Anyhow, it would be quite a few centuries before Sanskrit was written down. And the hymns and stories of the Arya people—especially the Vedas and the later Mahabharata and Ramayana epics—are poor guides as to historical events. Of course, the emerging Arya were to have a huge impact on the history of the subcontinent. Nevertheless, little is known about their early presence."; (e) Robb 2011, pp. 46–, "The expansion of Aryan culture is supposed to have begun around 1500 BCE. It should not be thought that this Aryan emergence (though it implies some migration) necessarily meant either a sudden invasion of new peoples, or a complete break with earlier traditions. It comprises a set of cultural ideas and practices, upheld by a Sanskrit-speaking elite, or Aryans. The features of this society are recorded in the Vedas."
  12. ^ Dyson 2018, pp. 16, 25
  13. ^ Dyson 2018, p. 16
  14. ^ Fisher 2018, p. 59
  15. ^ (a) Ludden 2014, p. 54; (b) Asher & Talbot 2006, pp. 78–79; (c) Fisher 2018, p. 76
  16. ^ (a) Ludden 2014, pp. 68–70; (b) Asher & Talbot 2006, pp. 19, 24
  17. ^ (a) Dyson 2018, p. 48; (b) Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 52
  18. ^ Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 152
  19. ^ a b Fisher 2018, p. 106
  20. ^ (a) Asher & Talbot 2006, p. 289 (b) Fisher 2018, p. 120
  21. ^ Taylor, Miles (2016), "The British royal family and the colonial empire from the Georgians to Prince George", in Aldrish, Robert; McCreery, Cindy (eds.), Crowns and Colonies: European Monarchies and Overseas Empires, Manchester University Press, pp. 38–39, ISBN 978-1-5261-0088-7
  22. ^ Peers 2013, p. 76.
  23. ^ Embree, Ainslie Thomas; Hay, Stephen N.; Bary, William Theodore De (1988), "Nationalism Takes Root: The Moderates", Sources of Indian Tradition: Modern India and Pakistan, Columbia University Press, p. 85, ISBN 978-0-231-06414-9
  24. ^ Fisher 2018, pp. 173–174: "The partition of South Asia that produced India and West and East Pakistan resulted from years of bitter negotiations and recriminations ... The departing British also decreed that the hundreds of princes, who ruled one-third of the subcontinent and a quarter of its population, became legally independent, their status to be settled later. Geographical location, personal and popular sentiment, and substantial pressure and incentives from the new governments led almost all princes eventually to merge their domains into either Pakistan or India. ... Each new government asserted its exclusive sovereignty within its borders, realigning all territories, animals, plants, minerals, and all other natural and human-made resources as either Pakistani or Indian property, to be used for its national development... Simultaneously, the central civil and military services and judiciary split roughly along religious 'communal' lines, even as they divided movable government assets according to a negotiated formula: 22.7 percent for Pakistan and 77.3 percent for India."
  25. ^ Chatterji, Joya; Washbrook, David (2013), "Introduction: Concepts and Questions", in Chatterji, Joya; Washbrook, David (eds.), Routledge Handbook of the South Asian Diaspora, London and New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-48010-9, Joya Chatterji describes how the partition of the British Indian empire into the new nation states of India and Pakistan produced new diaspora on a vast, and hitherto unprecedented, scale, but hints that the sheer magnitude of refugee movements in South Asia after 1947 must be understood in the context of pre-existing migratory flows within the partitioned regions (see also Chatterji 2013). She also demonstrates that the new national states of India and Pakistan were quickly drawn into trying to stem this migration. As they put into place laws designed to restrict the return of partition emigrants, this produced new dilemmas for both new nations in their treatment of 'overseas Indians'; and many of them lost their right to return to their places of origin in the subcontinent, and also their claims to full citizenship in host countries.
  26. ^ Talbot, Ian; Singh, Gurharpal (2009), The Partition of India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-85661-4, archived from the original on 13 December 2016, retrieved 15 November 2015, When the British divided and quit India in August 1947, they not only partitioned the subcontinent with the emergence of the two nations of India and Pakistan but also the provinces of Punjab and Bengal. ... Indeed for many the Indian subcontinent's division in August 1947 is seen as a unique event which defies comparative historical and conceptual analysis
  27. ^ Khan, Yasmin (2017) [2007], The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (2nd ed.), New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 1, ISBN 978-0-300-23032-1, South Asians learned that the British Indian empire would be partitioned on 3 June 1947. They heard about it on the radio, from relations and friends, by reading newspapers and, later, through government pamphlets. Among a population of almost four hundred million, where the vast majority live in the countryside, ploughing the land as landless peasants or sharecroppers, it is hardly surprising that many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, did not hear the news for many weeks afterwards. For some, the butchery and forced relocation of the summer months of 1947 may have been the first that they knew about the creation of the two new states rising from the fragmentary and terminally weakened British empire in India
  28. ^ (a) Copland 2001, pp. 71–78; (b) Metcalf & Metcalf 2006, p. 222.
  29. ^ "How the Cold War Shaped Bangladesh's Liberation War". thediplomat.com. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  30. ^ "Indian Subcontinent Archived 21 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine" 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."
  31. ^ "South Asia Regional Overview". South Asian Regional Development Gateway. Archived from the original on 21 November 2008.
  32. ^ Cite error: The named reference dip8Jan2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  33. ^ "Religion population totals in 2010 by Country". Pew Research Center. 2012. Archived from the original on 9 December 2016.
  34. ^ Ruffle 2013, p. 193.
  35. ^ "Region: Asia-Pacific". Pew Research Center. 27 January 2011. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  36. ^ Cite error: The named reference pew2Apr2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  37. ^ Cite error: The named reference SAARC Summit was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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