why is india called a subcontinent?

Question

for history project

Answer 1

b/c it is surrounded by water on three sides, and it juts out. The sheer size of it also impacts the name.

Answer 2

A subcontinent is a large part of a continent. There is no agreement on what constitutes a subcontinent. Generally, however, a subcontinent is split from the rest of a continent by something like a mountain range or by tectonic plates. The phrase the Subcontinent, used on its own in English, commonly means the Indian subcontinent i.e. South Asia.

The term the Indian subcontinent is used also culturally and politically. It includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, and usually other South Asian countries too. The region has wide geographical variations like desert, plateau, rainforest, mountains and a myriad of languages, races and religions.

Answer 3

Many of the answers I've read are true and informative, but you are still missing a key point. The Indian subcontinent was not attached to Asia 100's of millions of years ago. In fact, it was in the southern hemisphere. It moved north and crashed into Asia. This collision caused the Himalayas to form. I think India's geological history as a separate piece of land( island, continent, sub-continent, who knows?) is an important reason for calling it a subcontinent today.

Answer 4

I believe that they call India the subcontinent because of the size alone. India is pretty big, and if it weren't connected to the rest of Asia as closely, it could probably be considered a continent of its own.

Answer 5

Because, although part of Asia, it is a large area with very distict georgraphical boundaries that seperate traditional India (a larger area than today's nation-state India; add in Pakistan and Bengladesh) from the rest of Asia: The Himalayas to the north, more mountains seperating the west Indus valley (Pakistan) from today's Afganistan and Iran, and ocean along almost all of the rest of the region.

Answer 6

The answer to your question is because India is covered by water bodies on three sides. The Indian Ocean, The Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.thus making it a subcontinent.

Answer 7

It's too big to be a peninsula and too small to be its own continent. Yet India has a natural formidible barrier, the Himalaya Mountains, which isolate it from Asia; and its land mass is large enough to sustain unique animal life and develop an original human culture & civilization.

So the best description of the India land mass is 'sub'-continent: it exists beneath the Asian continent, but is too small to be a continent itself.

Answer 8

Because it is a large area of land attached to the continent of Asia

Answer 9

Because it is covered by water on three sides. The Indian Ocean, The Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal....

Answer 10

because it is attached to another continent. I bumped into Asia a few years ago. I think that Asia is eating it up as we speak.