State (pop., 2001: 10,143,700), northern India.
With an area of 39,146 sq mi (101,387 sq km), it occupies the southern portion of the Kashmir region of the northwestern Indian subcontinent and is bordered by the portions of Kashmir administered by Pakistan and China and by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab . The land is predominantly mountainous and includes segments of the Karakoram and Himalaya ranges. Much of Kashmir's Ladakh region is included in the state. There are two major lowland areas: the Jammu plain and the fertile and heavily populated Vale of Kashmir. The majority of the state's people are Muslims, although Hindus predominate in the southeastern Jammu area, and northeastern Ladakh is largely Buddhist. Formerly a princely state created in the 1840s, Jammu and Kashmir became an Indian state in 1947, even as India and Pakistan were fighting for control of the entire Kashmir region. A cease-fire line, established in 1949, has since served as the state's boundary with the Pakistan-administered area. Tension has remained high in the region, and there have been periodic outbreaks of border fighting.