Geography of West Bengal total area of . With Bangladesh, which lies on its eastern border, the state forms the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal. To its northeast lie the states of Assam and Sikkim and the country Bhutan, and to its southwest, the state of Orissa. To the west it borders the state of Jharkhand and Bihar, and to the northwest, Nepal. The capital of the state is Kolkata, the third-largest urban agglomeration and the seventh-largest city in India. There are 23 districts and 5 divisions in West Bengal. The Burdwan Division consists of Paschim Bardhaman district, Purba Bardhaman, Birbhum, and Hooghly, Midnapur Division
West Bengal Renaissance. A hotbed of the Indian independence movement through the early 20thcentury, Bengal was divided during India's independence in 1947 along religious lines into two separate entities: West Bengal, a state of India, and East Bengal, a province of Pakistan which later became independent Bangladesh. Between 1977 and 2011 the state was administered by the world's longest elected Communist government. The economy of West Bengal is the sixth-largest state economy in India with in gross domestic product and a per capita GDP of . The state's cultural heritage, besides varied folk traditions, includes authors in literature, such as Nobel laureate