India is crowned by the great Himalayas in the northern end and surrounded by huge oceans on the other three sides. While the Arabian Sea borders the south west side, the south east is lulled by the Bay of Bengal and the southern tip, and Kanya Kumari (Cape Cameron) is washed by the waves of the Indian Ocean. However such natural barriers like mountains and the sea never presented any encumberance in India's interaction with the rest of the world.

India lies to the north of the equator between 8.4 and 37.6 degrees north latitude and 68.7 and 97.25 degrees east longitude. This also means that India's standard time is 5.30 Hrs ahead of the Greenwitch mean time. India measures 3214 kms from north to south and 2933 kms from east to west. It has a land frontier of 15,200 kms and a coastline of 7516.5 kms.

India shares its political borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan on the west, Bangladesh and Burma in the east, Nepal, China, Tibet and Bhutan in the north.

As we are talking about the India’s variety of terrain, it is unmatched by any single country in this world and can be only compared with the unpredictable weather here. Starting from the high-altitude plains of Ladakh to the sweltering heat at the sand dunes of the Thar, the Great Indian Desert, where camels plod in these widest of wide open spaces. We have the Andaman’s tropical rain forests which are so dense, so impregnable that you couldn’t even be able to see the front of your nose!.

And we have the clear blue coral lagoons in the beautiful seas of Lakshdweep. India proudly boasts of having the world’s highest mountain range, the Himalayas and the ideal places to laze on the golden beaches stretched along the 7,516.5 km coastline. On the east side, we have cruises through the bayous and creeks hemmed in by silent mangrove swamps where the Royal Bengal Tiger prowls. Then there are the jade-green backwaters of the South and the coffee covered slopes of the Shevaroy mountains.

After this brief Geographical Interlude, Lets have some raw facts!