Language: Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%,
Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam
3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9%
Note: English is the subsidiary official
language, but is the most important language for national, political,
and commercial communication; Hindi is the most widely spoken language
and primary tongue of 41% 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
Largest Cities: (by population) Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore, Chennai (Madras)
Name: From the Old Persian word Hindu, the local name for the Indus River
National Day: January 26
Religion: Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1%
