58 Fun Facts About India

What is the capital of India?

New Delhi, a planned city beside old Delhi, was inaugurated as the imperial capital in 1931, replacing Calcutta; Mumbai is the larger city by population.

India ranks where among the world's countries by land area?

Seventh: only Russia, Canada, China, the USA, Brazil and Australia are larger by area. By population India overtook China in 2023 to become the largest.

On what date did India gain independence from Britain?

India became independent on 15 August 1947, the midnight Nehru marked with his 'Tryst with Destiny' speech; 26 January 1950, when the constitution took effect, became Republic Day.

Which river gives India its name?

The Greeks called the river Indos; ironically most of the Indus now flows through Pakistan. The constitution's other name for the country is Bharat.

Which ancient urban culture flourished in the subcontinent around 2500-1900 BCE?

The Indus Valley Civilisation: its cities Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had grid streets and covered drains, and its script has never been deciphered.

How many states does India have?

India has 28 states since Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into union territories in 2019; the newest state before that, Telangana, was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

Which is India's most populous state, with almost 200 million people at the 2011 census?

Uttar Pradesh had 199.8 million people at the 2011 census, about a sixth of India; Sikkim, with about 610,000, was the least populous state.

How many languages are listed in the Eighth Schedule of India's constitution?

The Eighth Schedule lists 22 languages, from Assamese to Urdu. Hindi is the most spoken first language at about 44%, and the constitution names no single national language.

India's founding legal charter, in force since 26 January 1950, holds which world record?

The longest written national constitution: it originally ran to 395 articles and 22 parts, took nearly three years to draft, and was hand-lettered by calligrapher Prem Behari Narain Raizada.

How many spokes does the Ashoka Chakra at the centre of the Indian flag have?

The Ashoka Chakra has 24 spokes. The navy-blue wheel is taken from the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath, which is also India's national emblem.

Who designed the Indian national flag?

Pingali Venkayya, a freedom fighter from Andhra, presented the tricolour design to Gandhi in 1921. For decades every flag had to be made of khadi; the rule was relaxed in 2021.

What is the national animal of India?

The Bengal tiger replaced the Asiatic lion as India's national animal in the early 1970s, when Project Tiger launched; the 2022 census counted about 3,680 wild tigers in India, roughly three quarters of the world's total.

Which bird is India's national bird?

The peacock got the job in 1963; the elephant is separately the 'national heritage animal' and the Ganges river dolphin the national aquatic animal.

India's national anthem, 'Jana Gana Mana', was composed by whom?

Rabindranath Tagore wrote 'Jana Gana Mana' in 1911; his 'Amar Shonar Bangla' later became Bangladesh's anthem. The separate national song is Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's 'Vande Mataram'.

In 1913 the poet of Gitanjali became the first non-European to win which honour?

Rabindranath Tagore won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature for Gitanjali, the first non-European laureate in that category; he renounced his British knighthood after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a tomb for whom?

More than 20,000 workers laboured on the white-marble mausoleum in Agra from 1632; Shah Jahan was eventually buried beside her.

On the bank of which river does the Taj Mahal stand?

The Taj Mahal stands on the south bank of the Yamuna at Agra; it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 and was voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World in 2007.

Who founded the Mughal Empire after defeating the Sultan of Delhi at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526?

Babur, a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, founded the dynasty in 1526 and wrote a candid memoir, the Baburnama; the Mughal court language was Persian.

Which Mughal emperor pushed the empire to its greatest territorial extent?

Aurangzeb's Deccan conquests took the Mughal Empire to its greatest extent by his death in 1707, covering almost the whole subcontinent; the last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was exiled to Burma after the 1857 uprising.

Emperor Ashoka embraced Buddhism and non-violence after the brutal conquest of which region?

Kalinga, on the Odisha coast, fell to Ashoka around 261 BCE with enormous slaughter; his remorse is recorded in his rock edicts. He ruled the Mauryan Empire from Pataliputra around 268-232 BCE.

Gandhi's 1930 Salt March covered about 388 km from Ahmedabad to which coastal village?

Dandi, on the Gujarat coast, where on 6 April 1930 he picked up a lump of natural salt to defy the British monopoly; the march from Sabarmati Ashram took 24 days and drew worldwide coverage.

Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, is observed worldwide as what?

The UN declared 2 October the International Day of Non-Violence in 2007. In India it is Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday; the honorific Mahatma means 'great-souled'.

Before returning to India, Gandhi spent 21 years practising law and organising protest in which country?

South Africa, from 1893 to 1914: he was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg for sitting in a first-class carriage, an episode he called a turning point.

Who was India's first prime minister?

Jawaharlal Nehru served from independence in 1947 until his death in May 1964, 16 years and 286 days; his birthday, 14 November, is celebrated in India as Children's Day.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is traditionally linked to the homecoming of which figure to Ayodhya?

Rama's return to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile and his defeat of Ravana is the story behind the lamps; celebrants light diyas, draw rangoli and set off fireworks, and many honour Lakshmi, goddess of wealth.

Holi, the festival of colours, marks the arrival of which season?

Spring: Holi falls on the full moon of Phalguna, usually in March, as winter ends; the night before, bonfires called Holika Dahan burn to mark good over evil.

Holi's association with Radha and Krishna makes which region its spiritual heartland?

Braj, the region around Mathura and Vrindavan where Krishna is said to have grown up; in its town of Barsana women famously chase men with sticks in the 'Lathmar Holi'.

Roughly how many free meals does the Golden Temple's community kitchen in Amritsar serve each day?

Over 100,000: the langar feeds anyone regardless of faith, about 100,000 meals on an ordinary day and more on festivals; the shrine's four entrances symbolise that openness, and its gold leaf was donated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1830.

Which gathering, rotating among Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain, is the world's largest?

About 660 million people attended in 2025; UNESCO added it to its intangible heritage list in 2017.

What is Bollywood?

The Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai; the name blends the city's former name with Hollywood and covers only Hindi cinema. India as a whole makes more films than any other country.

Raja Harishchandra, India's first feature-length film, was made in which year by Dadasaheb Phalke?

Raja Harishchandra premiered in 1913 as a silent film; the first Indian talkie, Alam Ara, followed in 1931, and India's top film honour is named after Phalke.

Satyajit Ray's 1955 debut Pather Panchali was the first film of which celebrated series?

The Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali, Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) follow Apu from village childhood to adulthood. Ray received an honorary Oscar in 1992, 24 days before his death, and the Bharat Ratna the same year.

India won its first Cricket World Cup in 1983 under which captain?

Kapil Dev captained the side that beat the mighty West Indies in the 1983 final in London; the next title came in 2011 under MS Dhoni, on home soil in Mumbai.

Sachin Tendulkar retired in 2013 with how many international centuries?

100: 51 in Tests and 49 in one-day internationals, the last coming against Bangladesh in March 2012. He debuted for India at 16 and in 2014 became the youngest recipient of the Bharat Ratna.

At which London ground did India play its first Test match, in June 1932?

Lord's, where in June 1932 India lost its inaugural Test to England by 158 runs; cricket had reached India with British traders in the early 1700s.

In August 2023 Chandrayaan-3 made India the first country to land a spacecraft where?

Near the Moon's south pole, a region no craft had reached before; the 23 August 2023 touchdown also made India only the fourth nation to soft-land on the Moon at all.

What did ISRO's 2014 Mangalyaan mission achieve that no other nation had?

Mangalyaan reached Mars orbit at the first attempt on 24 September 2014, a first for any nation; it was also the first Asian craft to orbit Mars, built for less than the film Gravity cost.

India's first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1975, was named after which ancient astronomer?

Aryabhata, the 5th-century astronomer who computed pi to four decimals; the satellite lifted off on a Soviet rocket on 19 April 1975. ISRO, headquartered in Bengaluru, launched its first solar probe, Aditya-L1, in 2023.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the country's 11th president, was popularly known by which nickname?

The Missile Man of India, for leading the Agni and Prithvi programmes: he spent four decades at DRDO and ISRO, helped run the 1998 Pokhran-II nuclear tests, and died giving a lecture at IIM Shillong in 2015.

Which 'taxicab number' linked to Ramanujan is the smallest expressible as the sum of two cubes in two ways?

1729 = 1³ + 12³ = 9³ + 10³. When G. H. Hardy called his taxi's number dull on a hospital visit, Ramanujan corrected him instantly; he was elected to the Royal Society in 1918.

The rules for arithmetic with zero were first set out in the 7th century by which Indian mathematician?

Brahmagupta's Brahmasphutasiddhanta of 628 CE gave rules for adding, subtracting and multiplying with zero; the decimal place-value system spread from India through the Arab world to Europe.

Chess descends from which game that emerged in ancient India?

Chaturanga, whose name means 'four divisions' of the army - infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots - which became pawn, knight, bishop and rook; it reached Persia as chatrang.

Which peak is the highest point in India?

Kangchenjunga, at 8,586 m the world's third-highest peak, straddles the Sikkim-Nepal border; Nanda Devi, 7,816 m, is the highest mountain lying entirely within India.

Which village in Meghalaya is often cited as the wettest place on Earth?

Mawsynram, averaging about 11,870 mm of rain a year, on the windward side of the Khasi Hills; nearby Cherrapunji held the title for decades and holds the record for a single year, 26,461 mm in 1860-61.

The Sundarbans delta, shared with Bangladesh, is home to the world's largest what?

The world's largest mangrove forest, about 10,000 km² across India and Bangladesh and a UNESCO site; it is also one of the last strongholds of the swimming Bengal tiger.

India's financial capital and Bollywood's home officially dropped which former name in 1995?

Bombay became Mumbai in 1995, after the Marathi name for the city; it was built on seven islands and hosts the Bombay Stock Exchange. Madras and Calcutta later became Chennai and Kolkata.

India's first passenger train in 1853 ran 34 km from Mumbai to which town?

Thane: the Great Indian Peninsula Railway ran the 34 km from Bori Bunder on 16 April 1853 with 14 carriages and some 400 passengers; Indian Railways grew into one of the world's largest employers.

The world's tallest statue, the 182-metre Statue of Unity in Gujarat, depicts whom?

Patel, who stitched 500-plus princely states into the new India, is honoured facing the Sardar Sarovar Dam; Narendra Modi unveiled it in 2018.

Which Indian city is nicknamed the 'Pink City' for its terracotta-coloured old town?

Jaipur: its old city was painted pink in 1876 to welcome the Prince of Wales, and the colour was kept by civic rule. Jodhpur is the Blue City and Jaisalmer the Golden City.

Which staples of Indian cooking today only reached India after the Portuguese arrived?

Chilli, potato and tomato are all New World crops that Portuguese traders brought after 1498; before then Indian heat came from black pepper and long pepper.

Chicken tikka masala has been famously described as what?

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook called it 'a true British national dish' in a 2001 speech on multiculturalism; its origins are usually placed in Britain's curry houses, where chicken tikka gained its creamy sauce.

Which state is India's largest by area?

Rajasthan, about 342,000 square kilometres, holds most of the Thar Desert; Goa, at 3,702 square kilometres, is the smallest state.

Which of these countries does NOT share a land border with India?

India's neighbours by land are Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar; Sri Lanka lies across the Palk Strait.

What is the southernmost tip of mainland India called?

Kanyakumari, formerly Cape Comorin, where the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean meet; the Vivekananda Rock Memorial stands on a rock just offshore.

Which Indian state markets itself to tourists as 'God's Own Country'?

Kerala: the 'God's Own Country' tagline promotes its backwaters and Ayurveda resorts; the state also recorded India's highest literacy rate, about 94%, at the 2011 census.

In which year did India conduct its first nuclear weapons test?

1974: the 'Smiling Buddha' device was detonated underground at Pokhran on 18 May 1974, billed as a peaceful nuclear explosion; China's 1964 test had pushed India toward the bomb, and five more tests followed in 1998.

Which Indian city is nicknamed the 'Silicon Valley of India' for its IT industry?

Bengaluru, Karnataka's capital, is home to the headquarters of Infosys and Wipro and earned the 'Silicon Valley of India' tag as software exports boomed in the 1990s.

How many high courts sit below the Supreme Court in India's judiciary?

25, the 25th being the Andhra Pradesh High Court created in 2019; the Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, has original jurisdiction over disputes between states and the union.