More than six hundred years ago John Mandeville said "InIndia are many divers countries," and it's true today. From the Himalaya to the tropical south, from the heart-stopping Taj to tiny villages, from tiger-haunted jungles to bustling mega-cites, India is almost a planet unto itself, forever fascinating, infinitely engaging.

• TOTAL AREA: 3,287,590 sq km

• LAND AREA: 2,973,190 sq km

• WATER AREA: 314,400 sq km

• POPULATION: 1,095,351,995

• RELIGIONS: Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1%

• LANGUAGES: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language

• GOVERNMENT TYPE: Federal Republic

• CAPITAL CITY: New Delhi

• OFFICIAL CURRENCY: Indian rupee (INR)

• TIME ZONE: GMT/UTC +5.5