India Gains Independence

Date: August 15, 1947 • Location: Arvi, India

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1947.

India gains independence from British rule after nearly 190 years of British company and crown rule and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the world's seventh-largest country by area and its most populous. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives.