a state in extreme northeastern India, at the foot of the Eastern Himalayas, primarily in the basin of the Brahmaputra River. The population is approximately 15 million, 7.8 percent of whom are urban. More than 50 percent of the population consists of Assamese and 18 percent consists of Bengalis; 4 percent speak Hindi. In the mountains the peoples and tribes (over 20 percent) speak Tibeto-Burmese and Mon-Khmer languages. The capital is Shillong.
The southern part of Assam is occupied by the Lushai Hills (elevations to 2,157 m), the central part by the Assam Range, and the northern part by a depression along the middle course of the Brahmaputra River, bordered on the east by mountains with elevations up to 4,578 m. The climate is tropical monsoonal, with very damp summers. Precipitation is more than 2,000 mm a year (on the average, more than 10,000 mm a year in the Assam Range), with the maximum in summer. Tropical evergreen and mixed forests cover more than one-third of Assam’s area.
Assam’s place in the national economy is determined by the production of tea (one-half the national output) and oil. About 15 percent of the territory of Assam is cultivated. Tea plantations are concentrated in the upper valley of the Brahmaputra and in the valley of the Surma (172,000 hectares yielded 190,000 tons in 1966–67), Jute (one-fifth of the national output) is cultivated in the lower part of the Brahmaputra Valley. Rice is the main food crop. Almost 30 percent of the cultivated area is irrigated. There is sericulture. The wood industry is based on the lumbering of valuable species and of bamboo. Oil is drilled (2.5 million tons in 1965–66) in the upper part of the Brahmaputra Valley, from which it is sent by pipelines to Digboi (capacity of the refinery is 400,000 tons), Nunmati (the state plant near Guahati, capacity 750,000 tons), and also to Barauni in the state of Bihar. Coal production is about 500,000 tons (1966). Petroleum chemistry is being established. There are enterprises for tea pressing, woodworking, cement production, and so on. Sillimanite is extracted (about 10,000 tons in 1966).
Assam is closely linked with Calcutta in transportation and economic relations.
G. V. SDASIUK
In antiquity and in the early Middle Ages the territory of Assam was called Pragjyotisha, or Kamarupa. A strong feudal state that included part of Northern Bengal was created here in the sixth-seventh centuries. In the 13th century the territory of Assam was conquered by the Ahoms, who came from upper Burma. During 1792–94 it was occupied by the British, and in the early 19th century by Burma. As a result of the Anglo-Burmese war of 1824–26, the territory of Assam was annexed to England’s Indian possessions. In 1921 it became a province of British India. After India achieved independence (1947) and was partitioned into two states (India and Pakistan), the territory of Assam became in 1950 a state of the Republic of India, except for the Sylhet district, which went to Pakistan.