the geography of the indian subcontinent

{{south asia{{

  • refers to the part of the asian continent that is cut off by the himalayas, hindu kush, and korkarum
  • countries
    • afghanistan
    • pakistan
    • nepal
    • bangladesh
    • sri lanka
    • bhutan
    • sri lanka
  • relative size: india is a little smaller than the united state, but has a lot of people
  • topographically:
    • mountains that cut you off: himalayas, hindu kush….
    • eastern ghats and western ghats on the slides
    • ghats come up and then you have an elevated plane
    • in between the ghats - the deccan plateau
    • vindhya range that complete that “deccan triangle area”
    • river valley plane - indus river and ganges
    • runs through afghanistan and india
    • bangladesh is basically a massive river valley delta
    • hindu kush: important for access and many empires want to control
    • mt. everest is here (tallest mountains in the world)
    • thar desert
    • the ganges river
    • very significant for several reasons
    • the indus river system
    • tibetan plateau; not a part of south asia, highest plateau above sea level
  • climate
    • himalayas - snow
    • arid areas - thar desert
    • as one moves south, warmer and more tropical
    • monsoons: winds that bring rain (refers to weather patterns), not necessarily the water itself as the winter monsoons make it drier then
    • india’s dependent on it; irrigation, fresh water, clear out dirt and pollution
  • demographics
    • indian states and union territories
    • a federal state
      • reflects a very long history of lots of different peoples
      • language families:
      • indo european
      • dravidian

entirely separate language family respective to india

  • tibeto-burnam
    • munda
    • mon-khmer
    • burushaski
    • languages
    • hindi - national language
    • english - because they were colonized, brought many together
    • in each state a language that is most spoken

within each state- several dialects and minority languages

  • population density
    • 1.3 billion people in india
    • heaviest in the indo-gangetic plain
    • bangladesh (~size of iowa)
      • most dense, ⅔ of the population of india
    • religion
    • a more unifying factor than language and ethnicity and etc

{{ancient indian civilizations{{

  • harappan society
    • we don’t know too much, even though they had writings - we just haven’t been able to decode
    • mohenjo daro and harappa: two main cities in this river valley
    • grew a variety of things, first people to grow cotton
    • benefitted from the annual flood