One Asian subregion holds a quarter of all humans
South Asia usually means seven states, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives, home to about 2.04 billion people, a quarter of humanity, on 5.2 million square kilometres, only a tenth of Asia. No other region on Earth is as populous or as densely settled.
Most of the region rests on the Indian Plate, a chunk of old Gondwana that struck Eurasia roughly 55 million years ago. Mountain walls isolate it: the Himalayas to the north, the Hindu Kush to the west and the Arakan ranges to the east, with the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal flanking its southern point. Two Maldivian atolls and the British Indian Ocean Territory lie wholly south of the equator. Boundaries remain fuzzy; Afghanistan is often counted, and Myanmar, Iran or Tibet appear in some schemes. The regional bloc SAARC began in 1985 with seven members and admitted Afghanistan in 2007.
Homo sapiens may have been active here 75,000 years ago, and Homo erectus perhaps 500,000. Rock paintings at the Bhimbetka shelters date to 30,000 BCE or earlier. The Indus Valley Civilisation flourished from about 3300 to 1300 BCE, peaking in its mature urban phase between 2600 and 1900 BCE. Indo-Aryan pastoralists then brought Vedic culture to the northwest and Ganges plain, and the first recorded state-level society appeared around 1000 BCE. Urban growth between 800 and 400 BCE fed ascetic movements led by Mahavira and the Buddha.
The Maurya Empire covered much of the region in the third century BCE, and Buddhism spread to Central Asia, Sri Lanka and beyond. The Mughal Empire, founded in 1526, brought two centuries of relative calm and celebrated architecture. British Crown rule began in 1858, and the 1947 partition into India and Pakistan caused mass death and an unprecedented migration. Bangladesh's 1971 war of liberation created the region's newest nation.
Many scholars now prefer 'South Asia' to 'Indian subcontinent' as a neutral label; at Karachi University the former was reportedly banned as India-centric until 1989.
Source: South Asia
