Uttar-pradesh

'I had been to other countries - in Europe,Asia and the Middle East - but none of them had provided even half as much variety, or so much to see and experience and remember, as this one State in northern India. You can travel from one end of Australia to the other,but everywhere on that vast continent you will find that people dress in the same way, eat the same kind of food,listen to the same music. This colourless uniformity is apparent in many other countries of the world,both East and West. But Uttar Pradesh is a world in itself.' - Ruskin Bond.

Brief History of Uttar Pradesh:
The epics of Hinduism, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, were written in Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh also had the glory of being home to Lord Buddha. It has now been established that Gautama Buddha spent most of his life in eastern Uttar Pradesh, wandering from place to place preaching his sermons. The empire of Chandra Gupta Maurya extended nearly over the whole of Uttar Pradesh. Edicts of this period have been found at Allahabad and Varanasi. After the fall of the Mauryas, the present state of Uttar Pradesh was divided into four parts: Surseva, North Panchal, Kosal, and Kaushambi.

The western part of Uttar Pradesh saw the advent of the Shaks in the second century BC. Not much is known of the history of the state during the times of Kanishka and his successors. The Gupta Empire ruled over nearly the whole of Uttar Pradesh, and it was during this time that culture and architecture reached its peak. The decline of the Guptas coincided with the attacks of Huns from Central Asia who succeeded establishing their influence right up to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh.

The seventh century witnessed the taking over of Kannauj by Harshavardhana. In 1526, Babur laid the foundation of the Mughal dynasty. He defeated Ibrahim Lodi in the battle of Panipat. Babar carried out extensive campaign in various parts of Uttar Pradesh. He defeated the Rajputs near Fatehpur Sikri while his son Humayun conquered Jaunpur and Ghazipur, after having brought the whole of Awadh under his control. After Babur's death (1530), his son Humayun forfeited the empire after being defeated at the hands of Sher Shah Suri at Kannauj.

After the death of Sher Shah Suri in 1545, Humayun once again regained his empire but died soon after. His son Akbar proved to be the greatest of Mughals. His established a unified empire over nearly the whole of the India. During his period, Agra became the capital of India and became heartland of culture and arts. Akbar constructed huge forts in Agra and Allahabad. The period of Jahangir (after 1605) saw arts and culture reach a new high. In 1627, after the death of Jahangir, his son Shahjahan ascended the throne. The period of Shahjahan is known as the golden period of India in art, culture, and architecture. It was during his reign that the classical wonder Taj Mahal was built in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. The régime of Aurangzeb saw the peak of Mughal Empire in terms of geographic expansion.

Modern-day Uttar Pradesh saw the rise of important freedom fighters on the national scenario. Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jawaharlal Nehru, Smt. Indira Gandhi, and Charan Singh were only a few of the important names who played a significant role in India's freedom movement and also rose to become the prime ministers of this great nation.

Geography of Uttar Pradesh:
Uttar Pradesh, with a total area of 243,290 square kilometres (93,935 sq mi), is India's fifth largest state in terms of area. It is situated on the northern spout of India and shares an international boundary with Nepal. The Himalayas border the state on the north,but the plains that cover most of the state are distinctly different from those high mountains. The larger Gangetic Plain region is in the north; it includes the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, the Ghaghra plains, the Ganges plains and the Terai. The smaller Vindhya Range and plateau region is in the south. It is characterised by hard rock strata and a varied topography of hills, plains, valleys and plateaus. The Bhabhar tract gives place to the terai area which is covered with tall elephant grass and thick forests interspersed with marshes and swamps. The sluggish rivers of the bhabhar deepen in this area, their course running through a tangled mass of thick under growth. The terai runs parallel to the bhabhar in a thin strip. The entire alluvial plain is divide into three sub-regions. The first in the eastern tract consisting of 14 districts which are subject to periodical floods and droughts and have been classified as scarcity areas. These districts have the highest density of population which gives the lowest per capita land. The other two regions, the central and the western are comparatively better with a well-developed irrigation system. They suffer from water logging and large-scale user tracts. In addition, the area is fairly arid. The state has more than 32 large and small rivers; of them, the Ganges, Yamuna, Saraswati, Sarayu, Betwa, and Ghaghara are larger and of religious importance in Hinduism.

District in Uttar Pradesh: 

Aligarh	Barabanki	Etawah	Hamirpur
Allahabad	Bareilly	Faizabad	Hardoi
Ambedkar Nagar	Basti	Farukkhabad	Hathras
Auraiya	Bijnor	Fatehpur	Jalaun
Azamgarh	Budaun	Firozabad	Jaunpur
Baghpat	Bulandshahar	Gautam Buddha Nagar	Jhansi
Bahraich	Chandauli	Ghaziabad	Jyotiba Phoole Nagar
Ballia	Chitrakoot	Ghazipur	Kannauj
Balrampur	Deoria	Gonda	Kanpur Dehat
Banda	Etah	Gorakhpur	Kanpur Nagar
Kaushambi	Meerut	Sant Ravidas Nagar	Sant Kabir Nagar
Shahjahanpur	Mirzapur	Kushi Nagar	Muzaffar Nagar
Lakhimpur Kheri	Moradabad	Shravasti	Siddharth Nagar
Lalitpur	Mau	Maharajganj	Pratapgarh
Lucknow	Pilibhit	Sitapur	Sultanpur
Sonbhadra	Mahoba	Raebareli	Mathura
Mainpuri	Rampur	Unnao	Saharanpur
Varanasi                   Agra