Karnataka is a state on the west coast of southern India.  It includes the region of Kanara, and the state's people are called Kanarese.  Karnataka is famous for its goldfields and for the sandalwood from its forests. 

People: More than 29 million people speak Kannada (also called Kanarese), one of the four Dravidian languages of India.  Many people in the border regions also speak one of the other southern languages, especially Tamil.  Hindi is often used for business and trade.  On the west coast, especially around Mangalore, Konkani is a widely used language.  Many Muslims speak Urdu.  

About 80 per cent of the population is Hindu.  The Muslim community makes up about 10 per cent of the population.  Nearly 3 per cent is Christian.  There is also a small number of Jains and Buddhists.  The state has some small communities with long-established identities, such as the Coorgis in southwest Karnataka.  Most of the tribal people live in the north and west.  They include the nomadic Lambanis, who move from place to place. 

Three-fourths of the population live in rural areas.  But Bangalore, the state capital, is one of India's most dynamic and attractive cities.  It has become the centre of some of India's most advanced industries and one of the major cosmopolitan centres of the south.  

About 40 per cent of the population can read and write.  There are more than 40,000 schools, and some important centres of further education and training in the state.  The University of Mysore has a long-established reputation.  Bangalore has a number of research institutions, including a University of Agricultural Sciences.  

Although standards of health care are above the Indian average, infant mortality rates in the state are still high by Western standards.  More than 76 in every 1,000 infants die before they reach their first birthday.  This figure is more than three times as high as in Kerala.  

Agriculture:  Most of the people are employed in agriculture.  More than half the state is cultivated.  Agriculture contributes half the state's income.  Although much of Karnataka has the same kinds of soils, there is great local variety in agriculture.  The plains of the west coast are intensively cultivated.  Rice is the main food crop.  Other food crops are maize, millet, and pulses (beans, chickpeas, or pigeon peas).  Sugar cane is the main cash crop.  Other cash crops include cardamom, cashew nuts, coconuts, cotton, mulberry, peanuts, pepper, tea, and tobacco.  Across much of the drier interior, millet is the staple crop.  Vegetables and green fodder are important in local areas such as the Krishna floodplain.  The Western Ghats hills in Karnataka are ideally suited to coffee production, especially in the southern parts.  A Muslim saint, Babu Bhudan, introduced coffee beans into India in the 1600's and planted them in the south of Karnataka.  Karnataka produces two-thirds of all the coffee grown in India.  European coffee plantations date from 1840.  There are some tea plantations on higher hills, but tea growing is not so important.  Farmers grow bananas and oranges in irrigated lands in the east.   

Cattle breeding is important in the far south.  The Mysore Prince Hyder Ali bred fast-trotting bullocks for use in warfare at the end of the 1700's.  The tradition of cattle breeding continues.  Pastoralism (the herding of animals) is important on the open plateaus the southeast.   

Forest Products:  Karnataka produces most of the world's sandalwood.  Oil from sandalwood produced in the western forests of the Malnad region is a major export.  These forests also yield teak and bamboo.  Other forest products include gum, dyes for the tanneries, and lac, the raw material for shellac.   

Hydroelectric power.  Karnataka has enormous resources for generating hydroelectric power.  In 1887, it became the first Indian state to generate electricity.  The first hydroelectric site was at Gokak Falls.  The fall of water from the high ranges of the Western Ghats through the plateau created several points where damming the rivers produces more capacity than Karnataka needs.  This makes it possible for the state to export electricity to its neighbours.  The Shivasamudram Falls, east of Mysore, were developed in the early 1900's, in the first large-scale hydroelectric development.  The falls are 100 metres high.  Further upstream, the Krishnarajasagar dam was built in 1927.  This dam supplies power for Bangalore and other cities, and irrigation water.   

Manufacturing:  There are iron and steel works at Bhadravati and heavy engineering works in Bangalore.  Cotton milling, sugar processing, and cement and paper manufacture are also major industries.  Other industries include manufacture of earth-moving machinery, heavy electrical goods, machine tools, raw silk, and telecommunications equipment.  Since the 1970's, Bangalore has become the centre of a rapidly growing electronics industry.  The city's role as a military base has encouraged a wide range of industries related to telecommunications and aircraft manufacture.  It is also the centre of India's fast-growing computer industry.   

Mining:  Karnataka's rocks are extremely rich in minerals such as chromite, copper, iron ore, gold, manganese, and mica.  The state also has small amounts of bauxite, the ore from which aluminium is made.  The Kolar goldfields, just east of Bangalore, produce 85 per cent of the country's gold.  The gold mines (3,000 metres deep) are among the deepest mines in the world.  Iron ore from the Babu Bhudan Hills is processed in the Bhadravati steel works.  

Location and Description:  Karnataka is located in southwestern India.  On its western flank is a 320-kilometre coastline fringing the Arabian Sea.  To its north and northwest are Goa and Maharastra.  Andhra Pradesh forms its eastern border, while in the extreme southeast it has a common border with Tamil Nadu.  The state's southwestern border is with Kerala.  Karnataka measures more than 700 kilometres from north to south and 500 kilometres from east to west.   

Land Features  The landscape of Karnataka largely consists of plateaus formed of rocks from the ancient peninsula.  These range in age from 500 million to 4,000 million years and are among the oldest on earth.  The hills of the Western Ghats rise steeply inland from a narrow, fertile coastal plain.  Karnataka has a lush green coastline.  Inland and parallel with the coast, the Western Ghats are generally lower in the north than in the south.  They rise to between 760 and 915 metres above sea level.  To the east of the ridge of the hills stretches a series of plateaus.  These plateaus rise to about 600 metres in the north and to over 1,200 metres in the south.  In the extreme north is a narrow belt of very poor thin soils, looking almost like a desert.  To their south is a strip of volcanic lavas which give rich black soils more typical of Maharashtra to the north.   

To the east of the ridges of the Western Ghats, a narrow belt of tropical evergreen forests gives way to deciduous woodland, where the trees lose their leaves in winter.  In the south, where the Ghats rise to more than 1,800 metres, the headwaters of rivers such as the Tunga and Bhadra have cut deep valleys.  The hills have beautiful forests with waterfalls and wildlife parks.  The Jog Falls on the Sharavati River near Shimoga are 250 metres high, and are among the highest in the world.  Across central and eastern Karnataka is the rolling parkland of the lower plateaus. 

Much of the state's natural vegetation disappeared as farming was extended.  On the wet slopes of the Western Ghats, a narrow strip of dense tropical forest includes a number of hardwoods and many varieties of bamboo.  On the more open plains to the east, teak and sandalwood are valuable natural species.  Karnataka is famous as the largest coffee-growing state in India.  The natural vegetation of much of the interior was once deciduous woodland or savannah.   

The forests of the west are rich in wildlife.  Wild boar, bears, and occasionally leopards and panthers are found.  Elephants are also found in the southwest.  The forests are also home to many reptiles, including king cobras.  Peacocks are common. 

The whole of Karnataka has a monsoon season.  Most of the rain comes within the five-month period from June to October.  But in some areas, especially the west, there are two peaks of rainfall.  Early rains come in May and are essential to the flowering of the coffee plants.  After these rains there is a drier period in June and July, with a second wet spell in September and October.  The altitude helps reduce temperatures over much of the state.  Average temperature ranges from 20 °C in December to 27 °C in May, the hottest month.  This comparative coolness makes cities such as Bangalore and Mysore particularly attractive.   

Rivers and Lakes:  Three great rivers, the Kaveri, the Tungabhadra, and the Krishna, flow from the Ghats across the plateau to the east.  The Kaveri flows southeast into Tamil Nadu, and irrigates the Thanjavur delta.  In 1927, the Kaveri was dammed at Krishnarajasagar to create a huge reservoir.  The Tungabhadra has also been dammed producing a lake which is used both for generating electricity and for irrigation.  The Tungabhadra flows northeast from its source and joins the Krishna after crossing the state border with Andhra Pradesh.