DK People & Places: Southern Asia

The city of Varanasi is sacred to Hindus, who form 90 percent of India’s population. Every year, millions of pilgrims gather on the stone steps called ghats along the high banks of the Ganges River. Here they pray, meditate, and purify themselves in the river’s holy waters. The dead are cremated on funeral pyres and their ashes are sprinkled onto the surface of the water.

The large number of hikers visiting the Himalayas each year are damaging the fragile mountain environment and threatening its ecology. Every year, 300,000 tourists visit Nepal to walk on the slopes of Mount Everest and other major peaks. These visitors erode mountain trails and often leave behind vast quantities of garbage.

Large parts of central and southern Bangladesh are flat, low-lying river plains, which flood during the summer monsoon rains. In good years, the floods water the crops and fertilize the fields. In bad years, they cause devastation by surging over flood defenses and sweeping away villages, livestock, and crops.

Bhutan is a small Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas, ruled by a monarch called the Dragon King. The country has little contact with the outside world, although television was introduced in 1999. Most of the population makes a living from farming.

India’s two largest cities are crowded, bustling places where modern high-rise office buildings stand next to ancient temples, monuments, and mosques. Calcutta is a major industrial city, and Mumbai (Bombay) is the center of India’s huge film industry. As more people move from the countryside in search of work, overcrowding in the cities’ slums is a growing problem.

The island of Sri Lanka has over 2,000 tea plantations and is the world’s largest tea exporter. The best tea grows on the hillsides in the cooler, central highlands. Tea is harvested by hand—machines would bruise the fragile leaves and spoil their delicate flavor. The leaves are then rolled, dried, and packed for export.

India was a British colony from the mid-19th century until 1947, when it gained its independence. British influences can still be seen in the region today, such as the widespread use of English, the European style of architecture, the vast rail network, the passion for cricket, and in the legal and political systems.