Assam
Assam ( Assamese: অসম, Asam ) is an Indian state with an area of 78,438 km ² and 31.2 million inhabitants ( 2011 census ). Capital and seat of government is Dispur, a suburb of Guwahati, the largest city in the state. The main languages spoken are Assamese ( Asamiya ) and Bengali ( Bengali ) in addition to numerous small languages of the Tibeto - Burmese language family.
- 2.1 demographics
- 2.2 languages
- 2.3 religions
Geography
Location and extent
Assam is located in the northeast of India and is one of the so-called seven sister states, which are connected by a narrow corridor with the rest of the country. Neighboring states are Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast, Nagaland and Manipur in the east, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya in the south and West Bengal in the west. In the northwest, the state border to Bhutan, in the southwest and southern Assam has two border sections to Bangladesh. The area of the state is 78 512 square kilometers. He occupies a central position among the states of India and is the same size as the Czech Republic.
The majority of Assam belongs to the valley of the Brahmaputra, which lies between the Himalayas in the north and the mountains of Meghalaya, North Cachar and Nagaland to the south. The Brahmaputra rises in Tibet and enters after he has crossed the Himalayas into a deep gorge into the river plain of Assam. Here the river reaches in places a width of ten kilometers. The Brahmaputra valley is about 1,000 kilometers long and 80 to 100 miles. In the south of Assam are the Bareil Mountains and beyond which the Barak Valley. The 40 to 50 km wide valley of Barak is isolated by the mountains from the rest of Assam and is geographically a continuation of the dar. river plains of East Bengal
Cities
By far the largest city of Assam is Guwahati ( formerly Gauhati) with 800,000 inhabitants ( 2001 census). The capital of Assam is Dispur, a suburb Guwahatis.
(As of 2001 census )
Population
Demography
According to the Indian census 2011 Assam has 31,169,272 inhabitants. Between 2001 and 2011 the population increased by 16.9 percent. The growth rate thus corresponds to the average of 17.6 per cent of India in the same period. The population density of Assam is 397 inhabitants per square kilometer and is thus close to the all-India average of 382 inhabitants per square kilometer. Here, a large part of the population is concentrated on rural areas: only 14.1 percent of the population living in cities of Assam. The degree of urbanization is significantly lower than the national average of 31.2 percent. With a literacy rate of 73.2 percent Assam ranks in the middle of the Indian states and is close to the average of India ( 74.0 percent).
A not insignificant minority of the population of Assam belongs to a number of indigenous peoples. Even though they mainly differ in linguistic- cultural, less economically - socially from the majority population, these ethnic groups as " tribal peoples " ( tribals ) are often referred to. The Indian 2001 census classified 12.4 percent of the population as members of the tribal population ( scheduled tribes ). The largest group form the Bodo who settle in the plains of the lower Brahmaputra valley in the west and Assam account for about 40 percent of the tribal population of Assam. The remaining tribal peoples living in the mountainous areas in eastern and southern Assam. The largest of these are the Miri, Mikir, Rabha, Kachari, Lalung, Dimasa and Deori. The two districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao, where tribal peoples are the majority, and the Bodo - areas ( Bodoland ) have an autonomous status.
In Assam experienced a greater number of immigrants from other parts of India and Bangladesh. Especially the illegal immigration of Muslim Bengalis from Bangladesh has led to an increasing extent of xenophobia among the long-established population of Assam, the fear of foreign infiltration and a creeping Islamisation of Assam. This conflict has repeatedly spoken in severe pogroms against Muslim Bengal.
Languages
The official language of Assam is the Assamese. The Assamese belongs to the Indo-Aryan languages, which is related to the languages of North India and also away with the most languages spoken in Europe. From the Indo-Aryan languages, the Assamese is the most penetrated to the east. It is spoken by half the population of Assam as their mother tongue.
Among the immigrant population especially Bengali (28 percent), Hindi (6 percent) and Nepali are common (2 percent). The Bengal is also in the Barak Valley, which historically and culturally strong affinities after East Bengal having the ancestral majority language. In the local three districts of Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi it owns next to the Assamese a status as associate official language.
The tribal population of Assam speak various languages that belong to the Tibeto-Burman family of languages for the most part. The largest of these languages is the Bodo, the language of the ethnic group of the same name. It is spoken by 5 percent of the population of Assam as their mother tongue and in the Bodo areas associated official language next to the Assamese. The tribal people of Assam in the east speak a variety of smaller tibetobirmanischer languages. The most important are Miri, Karbi, Garo, Rabha and Dimasa. The historically important Ahom language that served as a farm and literary language in the Ahom kingdom, extinct since the 19th century, in parts of Assam but small Tai languages are still spoken.
Religions
The majority of the inhabitants of Assam are Hindus. According to the 2001 census, they account for 65 percent of the population of the state. Your share is lower than the average of India. However, there are a large minority of Muslims. With 31 percent of Assam has claimed the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, the second highest Muslim population of all Indian states. In several districts of Assam Muslims are the majority. Furthermore, there is a Christian minority of nearly 4 percent. Particularly high proportion of the Christian population is among the tribal peoples. So Dima Hasao committed in the majority of indigenous peoples inhabited the district about a quarter of the population to Christianity. Other religions play with a share of 0.5 per cent in Assam hardly matters.
History
Assam was under the rule of the Ahom dynasty since 1228. Only in 1826 the British took over Assam by the Burmese.
Until the partition of India in the wake of independence from the British Assam encompassed the entire area of northeastern India. Through a referendum on 6 July 1947, the Sylhet area became part of the new East Pakistan. Other small states in India emerged later in the east of Assam. In the 1970s, the Assam conflict arose. 1972 Assam was last divided and created the state of Meghalaya, who took over the previous capital Shillong. New capital of Assam was Dispur.
For decades, various organizations for autonomy or independence of individual nations fighting in the state. One of the most active since 1979, the United Liberation Front of Asom ( ULFA ), which enters with its guerrilla actions for the independence of Assam from India. The separatists are military attack by the Indian government since 1988 ceasefire and peace agreements are also always closed.
Policy
Acting Chief Minister of the state since 2001 Tarun Gogoi.
Like the Seven Sister States and Sikkim, it is located in the northeast part of India's Northeastern Region with a special Ministry to promote development. Nevertheless, the region is the scene of an ethnically and economic conflict, called the Assam conflict.
Administrative divisions
The state of Assam is in the following 27 districts divided (population and population density according to the 2011 census ):
Assam tea
Assam is known for its strong, bitter Assam tea. The region contains the largest contiguous tea growing fields in the world. In German-speaking Assam tea is known as the main component of the Ostfriesentees.
Attractions
In Assam Kaziranga National Park, which was established in 1985 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site situated.