Uttar Pradesh

(2001 est. pop. 166.1 million). Uttar Pradesh is located centrally in the Indo-Gangetic Plain southeast of New Delhi. The area measures 243,286 square kilometers. It has been under one administration, at first as part of Bengal Presidency, since 1877, and in 1902 became known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. This became, simply, United Provinces in 1935, a name translated into Hindi as Uttar Pradesh after Independence in 1947. This state was made up of the former United Provinces and the princely states of Benares, Tehri-Garhwal, and Rampur. The capital is Lucknow (or Laknau). Not only was this area the center of the army uprising known as the Indian Mutiny (1857); Lucknow also was the focal point of the movement for an independent Pakistan. In 2000 the new state of Uttaranchal was carved out of Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh is governed by a legislative council and a legislative assembly. The state has a mixed, mostly rural, population of Hindus and Muslims, who speak Hindi, Urdu, and English; the official language is Hindi. Traversed by several rivers and canals, especially the Ganges and Jumna, the fertile state is the largest producer of food grains in India. In addition, sugar and edible oils are important farm produce. There is considerable industrialization—among goods produced in Uttar Pradesh are paper, chemicals, glass, distilled spirits, farm implements, leather and footwear, textiles, copper, coal, limestone, bauxite, silica, phosphorite, and pyrophillite.

Spate, O. H. K. (1972) India and Pakistan: A General and Regional Geography. 3^rd ed. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Wadley, Susan S. (1994) Struggling with Destiny in Karimpur, 1925–1984. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.