Eastern South Asia region is bounded by Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan in the north, Bangladesh in the east, the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on the west, and the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in the south. It is connected to the Seven Sister States of Northeast India by the narrow Siliguri Corridor. West Bengal is on the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north, to the Bay of Bengal in the south. The region lies in the humid-subtropical zone. The landlocked region of Northeast India includes the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya,
Himalayas on the Indian plain and limiting rainfall on the Tibetan plateau. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of the Indian subcontinent; many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. The name of the range derives from the Sanskrit "Himā-laya" (, "Abode of Snow"), from "himá" (, "snow") and "ā-laya" (, "receptacle, dwelling"). They are now known as the "", usually shortened to the "Himalayas". Formerly, they were described in the singular as the ""Himalaya"". This was also previously transcribed "Himmaleh", as in Emily Dickinson's poetry and Henry David Thoreau's essays. The mountains are known as the "Himālaya" in