West Bengal () is a state in India. It is in the eastern part of the country. West Bengal is the fourth most populous state in India. It is also the seventh most populous sub-national entity in the world. West Bengal is the sixth largest contributor to India's GDP.
Both West Bengal and Bangladesh are parts of historical and geographic region of Bengal. Kolkata is the capital city of West Bengal. In 2001, 80,221,171 people lived in West Bengal. With an area of , it is bigger than Serbia but smaller than Jordan. In traditional Indian geography it falls under the East Indian zone.
West Bengal has a tropical climate, so it is very hot and humid in summer and cool in winter. The people who live here are called Bengalis. Bengalis also live in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a country to the east of West Bengal
History
All of India was once ruled by the British Empire. The Indians wanted freedom, but the Hindus and the Muslims of India always argued. So it was decided to divide the country into two parts—one part for Muslims and the other part for Hindus. In 1947 Bengal, which was a province of India, was divided into West Bengal and East Bengal,which is now called Bangladesh. West Bengal went to India, and East Bengal went to Pakistan and was called East Pakistan. In 1971, Bangladesh became independent, as a result of the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Famous people from West Bengal include: Swami Vivekananda Rabindranath Tagore Satyendranath Bose Surendranath Banerjee Jagadish Chandra Bose Vidyasagar Shibdas Bhaburi Khudiram Bose Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Dr. Kadambini Ganguly Kishore Kumar Satyajit Ray Ritwik Ghatak Pradeep Kumar Banerjee Victor Banerjee Kishore Kumar Ganguly Biswajit Chatterjee Bappi Lahiri Michael Madhusudhan Dutta Rahul Dev Burman Sourav Ganguly Pranab Mukherjee Uttam Kumar Suchitra Sen Sushmita Sen Shreya Ghosal Arijit Singh Mithun chakravarti
Provincial symbols of Bengal (west)