Uttar Pradesh (/ˌʊtər prəˈdɛʃ/;[13] lit. 'North Province') is a state in northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world – more populous than all but three other countries outside of India.[14] – accounting for 16.5 percent of the total population of India. It was established in 1950 after India had become a republic. It is a successor to the United Provinces, established in 1935 by renaming the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, in turn, established in 1902 from the North-Western Provinces and the Oudh Province. Lucknow serves as the state capital, with Prayagraj being the judicial capital. The state is divided into 18 divisions and 75 districts. On 9 November 2000, a new state, Uttaranchal (now Uttarakhand), was created from Uttar Pradesh's western Himalayan hill region. The two major rivers of the state, the Ganges and its tributary Yamuna, meet at the Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad), a Hindu pilgrimage site. Other notable rivers are Gomti and Saryu. The forest cover in the state is 6.1 per cent of the state's geographical area. The cultivable area is 82 per cent of the total geographical area and the net area sown is 68.5 per cent of the cultivable area.[15]
The state is bordered by Rajasthan to the west, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi to the northwest, Uttarakhand and an international border with Nepal to the north, Bihar to the east, Madhya Pradesh to the south and also bordered by Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. It covers 240,928 km2 (93,023 sq mi), equal to 7.3% of the total area of India, and is the fourth-largest Indian state by area. Though long known for sugar production, the state's economy is now dominated by the services industry. The service sector comprises travel and tourism, hotel industry, real estate, insurance and financial consultancies. The economy of Uttar Pradesh is the third-largest state economy in India with ₹18.63 lakh crore (US$230 billion) in gross domestic product and a per capita GSDP of ₹68,810 (US$860).[9] President's rule has been imposed in Uttar Pradesh ten times since 1968, for different reasons and for a total of 1,700 days.[16] The state, at present, has three international airports – Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport (Lucknow), Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport (Varanasi) and Kushinagar International Airport (Kushinagar). Prayagraj Junction is the headquarters of the North Central Railway and Gorakhpur Railway Station serves as the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway. The High Court of the state is located in Prayagraj. The state contributes 80 seats and 31 seats to the lower house Lok Sabha and the upper house Rajya Sabha, respectively.
Inhabitants of the state are called Awadhi, Bagheli, Bhojpuriya, Braji, Bundeli, Kannauji, or Rohilkhandi depending upon their region of origin. Hinduism is practised by more than three-fourths of the population, with Islam being the next largest religious group. Hindi is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state, along with Urdu. Uttar Pradesh was home to most of the mainstream political entities that existed in ancient and medieval India including the Maurya Empire, Harsha Empire, Gupta Empire, Pala Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire as well as many other empires. At the time of Indian independence movement in the early 20th century, there were three major princely states in Uttar Pradesh – Ramgadi, Rampur and Benares. The state houses several holy Hindu temples and pilgrimage centres. Along with several historical, natural, and religious tourist destinations, including Agra, Aligarh, Ayodhya, Kushinagar, Mathura, Prayagraj, Varanasi and Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh is also home to three World Heritage sites.
History[edit]
Prehistory[edit]
Modern human hunter-gatherers have been in Uttar Pradesh[17][18][19] since between around[20] 85,000 and 72,000 years ago. There have also been prehistorical finds in the state from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic dated to 21,000–31,000 years old[21] and Mesolithic/Microlithic hunter-gatherer settlement, near Pratapgarh, from around 10550–9550 BCE. Villages with domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats and evidence of agriculture began as early as 6000 BCE, and gradually developed between c. 4000 and 1500 BCE beginning with the Indus Valley Civilisation and Harappa culture to the Vedic period and extending into the Iron Age.[22][23][24]
Ancient and classical period[edit]
Out of the sixteen mahajanapadas (lit. 'great realms') or oligarchic republics that existed in ancient India, seven fell entirely within the present-day boundaries of the state.[25] The kingdom of Kosala, in the Mahajanapada era, was also located within the regional boundaries of modern-day Uttar Pradesh.[26] According to Hinduism, the divine King Rama of the Ramayana epic reigned in Ayodhya, the capital of Kosala.[27] Krishna, another divine king of Hindu legend, who plays a key role in the Mahabharata epic and is revered as the eighth reincarnation (Avatar) of the Hindu god Vishnu, is said to have been born in the city of Mathura.[26] The aftermath of the Kurukshetra War is believed to have taken place in the area between the Upper Doab and Delhi, (in what was Kuru Mahajanapada), during the reign of the Pandava King Yudhishthira. The kingdom of the Kurus corresponds to the Black and Red Ware and Painted Gray Ware culture and the beginning of the Iron Age in northwest India, around 1000 BCE.[26]
Control over Gangetic plains region was of vital importance to the power and stability of all of India's major empires, including the Maurya (320–200 BCE), Kushan (100–250 CE), Gupta (350–600), and Gurjara-Pratihara (650–1036) empires.[28] Following the Huns' invasions that broke the Gupta empire, the Ganges-Yamuna Doab saw the rise of Kannauj.[29] During the reign of Harshavardhana (590–647), the Kannauj empire reached its zenith.[29] It spanned from Punjab in the north and Gujarat in the west to Bengal in the east and Odisha in the south.[26] It included parts of central India, north of the Narmada River and it encompassed the entire Indo-Gangetic Plain.[30] Many communities in various parts of India claim descent from the migrants of Kannauj.[31] Soon after Harshavardhana's death, his empire disintegrated into many kingdoms, which were invaded and ruled by the Gurjara-Pratihara empire, which challenged Bengal's Pala Empire for control of the region.[30] Kannauj was several times invaded by the South Indian Rashtrakuta dynasty, from the 8th century to the 10th century.[32][33] After the fall of the Pala empire, the Chero dynasty ruled from the 12th century to the 18th century.[34]
