India is bounded by the Indian Ocean in the south and the Bay of Bengal in the east. India, extends from Kashmir in the north to Kanniya kumari in the south and Arunachal Pradesh in the east to Gujarat in the west. India’s territorial limit further extends towards the sea upto 12 nautical miles (about 21.9 km) from the coast.
The latitudinal and longitudinal extent of India, they are roughly about 30 degrees, whereas the actual distance measured from north to south extremity is 3,214 km, and that from east to west is only 2,933 km.
Distance between two longitudes decreases towards the poles whereas the distance between two latitudes remains the same everywhere.
Southern part of the country lies within the tropics and the northern part lies in the sub-tropical zone or the warm temperate zone.
This location is responsible for large variations in land forms. That is why 82°30′ E has been selected as the _standard meridian of India. Indian Standard Time is ahead of Greenwich Mean Time by 5 hours and 30 minutes.
There are some countries where there are more than one standard meridian due to their vast east-to-west extent. For example, the USA has seven time zones.
