formerly United Provinces (of Agra and Oudh)
State (pop., 2001 prelim.: 166,052,859), northern India.
It is bordered by Nepal , the states of Bihar , Jharkhand , Madhya Pradesh , Rajasthan , Haryana , and Uttaranchal , and Delhi national capital territory and covers an area of 93,933 sq mi (243,286 sq km); its capital is Lucknow . The state, the most populous in the country, lies largely in the plains formed by the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. The region was the setting of two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana , and the scene of the rise of Buddhism after the 6th century BC. It was ruled by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the mid-3rd century BC, the Gupta dynasty ( 0441; AD 320 0441; 425), and King Harsa (606647). The Mughals gained control in the 16th century, at which time the city of Agra became a chief centre. The British arrived in the late 18th century; by the 1830s they held sway and eventually formed the North-West Provinces, to which Oudh was later annexed. The area was the main scene of the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The current province was formed in 1902 and became a state of India in 1947. In 2000 the northern portion of it was made into the state of Uttaranchal. Uttar Pradesh is India's largest silica-producing state, yet agriculture is by far its most important economic sector. Its noted tourist meccas are Agra and Varanasi .