Assam, a northeastern state of India, is a land of exquisite flowers and rare wild animals. Renowned for its tea, wildlife and silk, Assam is a state with rich biodiversity. With its capital at Dispur, a suburb of the city Guwahati, it encompasses the Brahmaputra, the Barak river valleys, the Karbi Anglong, and the North Cachar Hills. Assam is bordered by the rest of the Seven Sister States: Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya. It also shares International borders with Bhutan and Bangladesh. The native and official languages of the state are Assamese and Bodo.

State Bird - White winged wood duck; State Animal - One horned rhino; State Flower- Fox tailed Orchid; State Tree - Hollong

Assam, the eastern most state of the Indian sub-continent, extends from 22o19' to 28o16' North Latitude and 89o42' to 96o30' East Longitude between the foot hills of the Eastern Himalayas and the Patkai and Naga Ranges. Assam is bordered in the North and East by the Kingdom of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh. Along the south lies Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Meghalaya lies to her South-West, Bengal and Bangladesh to her West. Assam is connected with the rest of the Indian Union by a narrow corridor in West Bengal that runs for 56km below the foothills of Bhutan and Sikkim.

History

Assam was known as 'Kamarupa' or 'Pragjyotish' in the period of the Epics. Human inhabitation of this area dates backs to about 2000 BC. The population of Assam comprises of the migrants from Burma and China. They came into Assam after the mongoloid migration. They came from Punjab through Bihar and North Bengal. Thus Assam presents a fusion of Mongol-Aryan culture. The early history of Assam is believed to be of the Varman dynasty. The reign of this dynasty extended from 400 AD to 13th century. The visit of Huien Tsang is said to have taken place during the 7th century at the time of Kumar Bhaskar Varman. The Ahoms ventured into Assam in about 1228 AD. By 15th century the kingdoms of Ahom and Koch were established. This period witnessed a change in all walks of life in Assam.

In the later part of the 18th century the Ahom Kingdom was weakened due to internal strife. The Burmese ran over the political authority in Assam thus invoking British intervention to subdue the Burmese. After a conflict between the Burmese and the English, peace was restored by the treaty of Yandaboo in 1826. The British then set out to organize the administration, transport and communication. Besides the various changes, the construction of railways; introduction of tea plantation, discovery of coal and oil etc. proved fruitful to the British during the World War II. After Independence of India, Assam witnessed several separation of territories. In 1948, NEFA (Arunachal Pradesh) was separated. In 1963 Nagaland was separated. In 1972 Meghalaya and in 1987 Mizoram.

The People
An ideal meeting ground for diverse races, Assam gave shelter to streams of human waves carrying with them distinct cultures and trends of civilization. Austro-Asiatics, Negritos, Dravidians, Alpines, Indo-mongoloids, Tibeto-Burmese and Aryans penetrated into Assam through different routes and contributed in their own way towards the unique fusion of a new community which came to be known in later history as the Assamese. Assam, however, remained predominantly a land of the Tibeto-Burmese. The vast section of the people of Assam belong to either to this stock or owe their origin to the fusion of this stock with other racial groups. In Assam (excluding the Surma valley) and north-east Bengal, the Dravidian type has, to a great extent, been replaced by the Mongolian, while in the Surma valley and the rest of Bengal a mixture of races has taken place in which the recognizable Mongolian element diminishes towards the west and disappears altogether before Bihar is reached.

There has been racial intermixture among the population of Assam. The Mongoloid racial stock have large number of tribes. Their physical features are described as "a short head, a broad nose, a flat and comparatively hairless face, a short but muscular figure and a yellow skin." But there are numerous other races also. Traces of the Negroid are to be found among the Nagas. The Khasis who speak Austric language belong to the proto-australoids. The Kaibartas and the Banias of Assam are said to be descendants of the Dravidians. They are distinguished by "a long head, large and dark eyes, a fairly strong beard, a black or nearly black colour and a very broad nose, depressed at the base, but not so as to make the face look flat". Then there are the Aryans, with a long head, tall and well-built, having a fine, long and prominent nose and a fair complexion, who came to Assam from across Bihar and Bengal. All these peculiarities of physiognomy one will encounter in Assam.

Ahoms
The Ahoms are the only Mongoloid race whose arrival in Assam is historically recorded. This is because they came very late, viz, in 1228 AD. and they recorded their own activities in the chronicles called 'Buranjis', meaning 'store -house of unknown things'. The Ahoms spoke Chinese-Siamese. In upper Burma and western Yunnan, they had styled themselves as Shans. The Ahoms, though scattered all over the valley, are concentrated in Sibsagar district, the seat of their  administration. Assam, the present name of the state, is in all probability an Ahom contribution. The other Shan tribes who followed the Ahoms along the same Patksi Range route are the Khamtis, Naras, Phakials, Aitaniyas,Turungs and Khamjangs, all Buddhists. The Ahoms were the only non-Buddhists. The Aryan Hindus of Assam are numerous with their sub-sects. Principal  castes or classes of people of Assam, excluding the tribes are: Brahmana, Kayastha, Kalita, Koch, Keot, Ganaka or Daivajna, Kaibarta, Kumara Hari, the  last two being potters. This classification is based on old records and present social conditions. They inhabit every nook and corner of the plains. They originally came to Assam  from the west  like other Aryan descendants of northern India, they are also tall and fair. The Kalitas are agriculturists by profession, though during Ahom rule they proved their might as soldiers also. The Brahmanas  and Kayasthas are generally given to intellectual pursuits such as learning, diplomacy, statecraft and religious teaching. It is they who are largely responsible for propagating the scriptures, building up literature and developing the Assamese language.

Among fruit crops, Assam has oranges and other citrus fruit, bananas, guavas, pineapples and mangoes. There are extensive plans to expand the cultivation of these fruit products and market them to bring greater benefits to the farmers. The gross cropped area in the state is about 35 lakh hectares out of which rice cultivation alone accounts for 26 lakhs. Forests are an important part of Assam's economy. Timber is a major product of the states extensive forests and bamboo is another product, bringing Assam substantial revenue and adding to its wealth. Assam is rightly known for its excellent tea which is one of the major cash crops . About 15 percent of the world's total output of tea comes from the tea gardens of Assam, which provide employment to more than a million people. More than half of that in direct form in the tea gardens and factories turning green leaves into dry tea for home and hotel consumption. Tea cultivation occupies a little less than a tenth of the cultivated area of Assam and 75 percent of the tea gardens are located in the Brahmaputra districts of Darrang, Sibsagar and Lakhimpur. Cachar district accounts for 20 percent of the balance and the remaining 5 percent being accounted by the lower Brahmaputra valley. Guwahati centre in Assam has become the biggest centre of auction of CTC tea in the world.

Industry
It is an important producer of silk of different kinds and known for weaving of silk products into saris and fabrics. Production of tusser and other silks and weaving of fabrics is an important occupation for a number of people. Other types of industries are food products, wood and wood products, chemicals and chemical products, non-metallic mineral products. Tea and oil are of prime importance to Assam's economy and also plays a significant role in the economy and life of the state. At Digboy on the border with Burma, Assam has the oldest Indian oil venture and one of the oldest in the world.

Mining
In Assam, mining is at present concentrated mainly to four industrial minerals, namely, coal, oil and gas, limestone and sillimanite. The history of coal mining in Assam goes back to the year 1834 when extraction of this mineral on a small scale was being carried out at Cherapunji in upper Assam. Coal was first mined in 1840 near Jaipur by the Assam Tea Co. But the most important phase in the development of the coal mining industry in Assam was the incorporation of the Assam Railway and Trading Co. in 1882 for the exploitation of the upper Assam coal. The most important coal mines in Assam are situated in the Ledo and Jaipur areas of upper Assam. In the Mikir hills, two small collieries exist -one at Koilajan and other at Seelbhata. The coal mining activity in the Khasi hills is mostly concentrated around the Laitryngew area. In addition to these small collieries, three mines exist in the Khasi hills. Messrs Thanginath colliery and the Mawsynram colliery are important among them. A small coal mine has been developed at Nangwalbibra in the west Darranggiri Coalfield in the Garo hills under the auspices of the ASMDC, a state government under taking. Petroleum mining is an outstanding feature of Assami's industrial landscape. Its exploration and development in the state are carried out by the oil and natural gas commission, Oil India Limited and Assam oil company. The discovery of the first oilfield, the Digboy field, goes back to the year 1889. The outstanding work of the BOC in upper Assam has culminated in the discovery of the Nakarkatiya (1953)and Moran (1950) fields which are now developed by the OIL company. Limestone mining in Assam is confined to surface quarrying. Regular mining activities have been started since 1938 in Therriaghat area in Khasi Hills. Sillimanite has been known to occur at Sonapahar since 1922. In addition to these major minerals , minor minerals such as gravel, sand, building stone and ballast are produced at present at various places in the state.

Tourism
Assam, the rich, green land of rolling plains, dense forests and beautiful rivers, located between 89o42' to 96o30' East Longitude and 22o19' to 28o16' North Latitude is the gateway to the north eastern part of India. Extending from and between the foot hills of the Eastern Himalayas and the Patkai and Naga Ranges, Assam is bordered by Bhutan in the North; Arunachal Pradesh in the East; Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram in the south; Meghalaya in the South-West and Bengal and Bangladesh on the West. The state dominated by the mighty Brahmaputra river, is renowned for its tea, rich flora and fauna, the world famous one horned rhinoceros and other rare species of wildlife on the verge of extinction.