Rarh region

Rarh region (Bengali: রাঢ়, Rāṛh) is a toponym for an area in the Indian subcontinent that lies between the Chota Nagpur Plateau on the West and the Ganges Delta on the East. Although the boundaries of the region have been defined differently according to various sources throughout history, today it is mainly coextensive with the state of West Bengal also comprising some portions of the state of Jharkhand and Bihar in India.

The Rarh region historically has been known by many different names and has hosted numerous settlements throughout history. It is suggested that the Rarh region hosted an ancient civilisation also called Rarh and a powerful state, however much of its ancient history remains unknown.

Different names and etymology

Different names of the region as endonyms are usually variations of the term Rāṛh. It is worth noting that the grapheme ঢ় /ṛh/ is basically the same as ঢ /ḑh/, the only difference being one dot under the ঢ and they belong to the same morphophoneme. The interchangeable variations Radha, Rarha, Ladha, Lara are observed in the oldest Jain book of codes Acaranga Sutra of the 6th century BC. Some other sources use the endonyms Lala, Rara and Lada. According to the linguist Sarkar the Chinese called Rarh as Lati, the Greek as Ganga Ridae and the Aryans as Rāṭṭha. Moreover, many Greek, Roman and Egyptian sources use the variations of Gangaridai, Gangaridae, Gangaritai and Gangaridum with the sense of a state, nation or civilisation which existed more or less in the same or a larger extent of Rarh. Megasthenes, Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus and Plutarch all wrote about Gangaridae.

West Bengal

West Bengal (/wɛst bɛŋˈɡɔːl/; Bengali pronunciation: [pɔʃtʃimbɔŋɡɔ]) is a state in eastern India and is the nation's fourth-most populous state, with over 91 million inhabitants. Spread over 34,267 sq mi (88,750 km²), it is bordered by the countries of Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, and the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim, and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata. Together with the neighboring nation of Bangladesh, it makes up the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal.

Ancient Bengal was the site of several major janapadas (kingdoms). It was also part of large empires such as the Maurya Empire (second century BC) and Gupta Empire (fourth century AD); and part of the regional Buddhist Pala Empire (8th to 11th century) and Sena dynasty (11th–12th century). From the 13th century onward, the region was controlled by the Bengal Sultanate, Hindu kings and Baro-Bhuyan landlords under the suzerainty of the Mughal Empire, until the British East India company took control of the region from the Mughals in the late 18th century. The company consolidated their hold on the region following the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and Battle of Buxar in 1764 and by 1793 took complete control of the region. Kolkata (or Calcutta) served for many years as the capital of British controlled territories in India. The early and prolonged exposure to British administration resulted in the expansion of Western education, culminating in development of science, institutional education, and social reforms in the region, including what became known as the Bengali renaissance. A hotbed of the Indian independence movement through the early 20th century, Bengal was divided during India's independence in 1947 along religious lines into two separate entities: West Bengal—a state of India—and East Bengal—a part of the newly created Dominion of Pakistan that later became the independent nation of Bangladesh in 1971.

South Asia

South Asia or Southern Asia is a term used to represent the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan SAARC countries and, for some authorities, adjoining countries to the west and east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as Nepal and northern parts of India situated south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. South Asia is bounded on the south by the Indian Ocean and on land (clockwise, from west) by West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The terms "Indian subcontinent" and "South Asia" are sometimes used interchangeably.

The current territories of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka form the countries of South Asia. In addition, with deviating definitions based on often substantially different reasons, the British Indian Ocean Territory, Mauritius, and the Tibet Autonomous Region are included as well. South Asia is home to well over one fifth of the world's population, making it both the most populous and the most densely populated geographical region in the world. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation(SAARC) is an economic cooperation organisation in the region which was established in 1985 and includes all eight nations comprising South Asia.

Ganges Delta

The Ganges Delta (also known as the Ganges–Brahmaputra Delta, the Sunderbans Delta, or the Bengal Delta) is a river delta in the South Asia region of Bengal, consisting of Bangladesh and the state of West Bengal, India. It is the world's largest delta, and empties into the Bay of Bengal. It is also one of the most fertile regions in the world, thus earning the nickname The Green Delta. The delta stretches from the Hooghly River on the west to the Meghna River on the east. It is approximately 354 km (220 mi) across at the Bay of Bengal.Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and Haldia in India and Mongla and Chittagong in Bangladesh are the principal seaports of the delta.

A number of large rivers flow through the Ganges Delta, including the Padma (main distributary of the Ganges) and the Jamuna (main distributary of the Brahmaputra), which merge and then join the Meghna before entering the sea.

Geography

The Ganges Delta has the shape of a triangle, and is considered to be an "arcuate" delta (arc-shaped). It covers more than 105,000 km² (41,000 sq mi), and although the delta lies mostly in Bangladesh and India, rivers from Bhutan, China, India, and Nepal drain into it from the north. Approximately two-thirds of the delta is in Bangladesh. Most of the delta is composed of alluvial soils made up by small sediment particles that finally settle down as river currents slow down in the estuary. Rivers carry these fine particles with them, even from their sources at glaciers as fluvio-glacial. Red and red-yellow laterite soils are found as one heads farther east. The soil has large amounts of minerals and nutrients, which is good for agriculture.

Bengal

Bengal /bɛŋˈɡɔːl/ (Bengali: বাংলা  Bangla  /baŋla/ or বঙ্গ Bônggo /bɔŋɡo/) is a geographical and ethno-linguistic region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, at the apex of the Bay of Bengal and dominated by the fertile Ganges delta. The Bengal region was politically divided in the 1947 Partition of India based on religion: predominantly Hindu West Bengal became a province (now a state) of India, while predominantly Muslim East Bengal became a province of Pakistan and later gained independence as Bangladesh. Some regions of the historical kingdoms of Bengal are now part of Nepal and the neighbouring Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Bihar, Meghalaya, Manipur, Jharkhand, and Odisha. The Bengali people (বাঙালি Bangali), who speak the Bengali language (বাংলা Bangla), which is Indo-Aryan, natively inhabit the region, alongside dozens of indigenous ethnic groups who speak minority languages of the Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiatic, and Dravidian families.

Bengal is one of the most densely populated regions on Earth, with an estimated population of 250 million people and a population density exceeding 900 people per square kilometre. Most of the Bengal region lies in the low-lying Ganges Delta, the world's largest river delta. In the southern part of the delta lies the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest and home of the Bengal tiger. In the coastal southeast lies Cox's Bazar, the world's longest beach with a length of more than 100 km (62 mi). While most of the region is rural and agrarian, it includes two megacities: Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and Dhaka (formerly Dacca).