60 Fun Facts About India

What is the capital of India?

Delhi's planned twin was inaugurated as the imperial capital in 1931, replacing Calcutta; Mumbai remains the largest city by population.

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

It is the largest by population, having overtaken China in 2023, but sits behind Russia, Canada, China, the USA, Brazil and Australia by area.

On what date did India gain independence from Britain?

Nehru marked the moment 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?

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?

Plus eight union territories, for 36 subnational units; Rajasthan is the largest state by area and Goa the smallest.

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

On its own it would be the world's fifth most populous country; tiny Sikkim, with about 610,000 people, is the least populous state.

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

Hindi is the most spoken first language at about 44%, Bengali is second, and the constitution names no single national language.

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

It originally ran to 395 articles and 22 parts, took nearly three years to draft under B. R. Ambedkar, and was hand-lettered by calligrapher Prem Behari Narain Raizada.

Who chaired the drafting committee of India's constitution?

Ambedkar, a Dalit jurist educated at Columbia and the LSE, later converted to Buddhism with hundreds of thousands of followers.

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

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?

For decades the law required every flag to be made of khadi, the hand-spun cloth Gandhi championed; the rule was relaxed in 2021.

What is the national animal of India?

Adopted in 1973, the same year Project Tiger began; India now holds well over 3,000 wild tigers, most 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?

He also wrote Bangladesh's anthem, making him the only person with two national anthems to his name; the separate national song is 'Vande Mataram'.

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

He won for Gitanjali and gave back 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?

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?

A descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, he wrote a candid memoir, the Baburnama; the dynasty's court language was Persian.

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

The empire's last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was deposed by the British after the 1857 uprising and exiled to Burma.

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

He ruled the Mauryan Empire from Pataliputra around 268-232 BCE; his lion capital at Sarnath is now India's state emblem.

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

He picked up a lump of natural salt to defy the British monopoly; the march took 24 days and drew worldwide coverage.

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

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?

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?

He served for 16 years and 286 days, still the longest tenure; his birthday, 14 November, is celebrated as Children's Day.

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

Celebrants light diyas, draw rangoli and set off fireworks over about five days between mid-October and mid-November; many also honour Lakshmi, goddess of wealth.

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

It falls on the last full moon of the month of Phalguna; 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?

In 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?

The langar feeds anyone regardless of faith; 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 portmanteau of Bombay and Hollywood 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?

The first Indian talkie, Alam Ara, followed in 1931; India's top film honour is named after Phalke.

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

Ray received an honorary Oscar from Audrey Hepburn by video link 24 days before his death in 1992, and India's Bharat Ratna the same year.

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

They beat the mighty West Indies at Lord's; the next title came in 2011 under Dhoni, on home soil in Mumbai.

Sachin Tendulkar is the only batter to have scored how many international centuries?

He debuted for India at 16 against Pakistan and in 2014 became the first sportsperson, and youngest person, to receive the Bharat Ratna.

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

They lost 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?

India became only the fourth nation to soft-land on the Moon at all; ISRO's Mars Orbiter had already reached the Red Planet at the first attempt in 2014.

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

It was also the first Asian craft to orbit Mars, at a cost lower than the film Gravity.

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

ISRO is headquartered in Bengaluru and 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?

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?

G. H. Hardy mentioned the dull cab number on a hospital visit; Ramanujan corrected him instantly. He was elected to the Royal Society at 31.

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

The Bakhshali manuscript uses a dot for zero, and the decimal place-value system spread from India through the Arab world to Europe.

Chess descends from which game that emerged in 7th-century India?

The name means 'four divisions' of the army - infantry, cavalry, elephants and chariots - which became pawn, knight, bishop and rook.

What is India's highest mountain?

At 8,586 m it sits on the Sikkim-Nepal border and is the world's third-highest peak; Everest and K2 lie outside India's borders.

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

It lies on the windward side of the Khasi Hills; nearby Cherrapunji held the title for decades and still holds the single-year rainfall record.

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

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?

The city was built on seven islands and is home to 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?

Just 34 km; today Indian Railways carries nearly seven billion passengers a year and employs more than 1.2 million people.

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.

What does the Sanskrit root of the word 'yoga' mean?

Yoga-like practices are mentioned in the Rigveda, and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras codified the discipline in the early centuries CE.

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

All three are New World crops; before the 16th century Indian heat came from black pepper and long pepper.

Chicken tikka masala has been famously described as what?

Its origins are usually placed in the curry houses of Britain, not India, where chicken tikka is served without the creamy sauce.

Which state is India's largest by area?

At 342,269 square kilometres it 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?

Formerly Cape Comorin, it is where the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean meet; India's coastline runs about 7,500 km.

How many union territories does India have alongside its 28 states?

Three of them, Jammu and Kashmir, Puducherry and Delhi, have their own elected legislatures.

How long is India's coastline, according to Wikipedia's summary?

About 2,094 km of that belongs to the Andaman, Nicobar and Lakshadweep island chains.

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

China's 1964 test and its threats during the 1965 war with Pakistan pushed India toward the bomb; more underground tests followed in 1998.

The Middle Persian name Hindustan for India became popular by which century?

It was used widely from the Mughal era, sometimes for the whole subcontinent and sometimes just the north.

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

The Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of India, has original jurisdiction over disputes between states and the union.