From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
West Bengal is a state in the northeast of India. Neighbouring regions are Nepal and Sikkim to the northwest, Bhutan to the north, Assam to the northeast, Bangladesh to the east, the Bay of Bengal to the south, Orissa to the southwest and Jharkhand and Bihar to the west.
Its capital city is Kolkata. There are 18 districts in this state. The climate of West Bengal is tropical. The land is mostly plane land except the northern region which is a part of Himalayan Mountain Range. Darjeeling in the north is well known for its high quality teas. At the south of West Bengal the Sundarbans delta on Ganges river is a part of the world's largest river delta (rest of it lies in Bangladesh). This region is famous for the Royal Bengal Tiger.
Bengal was divided in east and west between India and Pakistan in 1947. The Pakistani part later became Bangladesh.
Bengal is the cultural hub of India. There was a saying, "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow". It's the birthplace of India's only Noble laureate in literature, Rabindranath Tagore. The world famous film director Satyajit Ray was also born here. Apart from this, Bengal gave birth to an innumerable number of well known poets and writers who enriched the world literature ceaselessly. To name a few, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Michael Madhushudhan Dutta, Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. During independence movement, Bengal took a leading and especially militant role.Subhas C Bose, who was belovedly called "Netaji" is still a burning example of courage for Indian youth. Satyendra Nath Bose, from whom the boson particle and Bose-Einstein theory get their names, was also a Bengali. Amartya Sen, who won Nobel Prize in Economiics in 1998 is a Bengali. Mother Teresa, winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 had worked in Kolkata for most of her life. In spirituality, Bengal gave birth to great sages and saints like Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (15th century major Vaishnava figure), Ramprasad Sen (a famous Kali Bhakta and poet) and Ramakrishna Paramhansa; others include Swami Vivekananda (the most reknowned of Shri Ramakrishna's disciples), Shri Śrī Aurobindo Ghosh, and Prabhupada A.C. Bhaktivedanta the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON).
The speaking language of West Bengal is Bengali
See also: List of people from West Bengal
