West Bengal West Bengal West Bengal () is an Indian state, located in Eastern India on the Bay of Bengal. With over 91million inhabitants (as of 2011), it is India's fourth-most populous state. It has an area of . A part of the ethno-linguistic Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, it borders Bangladesh in the east, and Nepal and Bhutan in the north. It also borders the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim, and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata (Calcutta), the seventh-largest city in India. As for geography, West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region, the Ganges delta, the
Geography of West Bengal at places. West Bengal stands third in the country in terms of mineral production. The state contributes about one-fifth to the total production of minerals in the country. Coal constitutes 99% of the minerals extracted in West Bengal; fireclay, china clay, limestone, copper, iron, wolfram, manganese and dolomite are mined in small quantities. There are good possibilities of obtaining mineral oil and natural gas in the areas near the Bay of Bengal, in Purba Medinipur, Sundarbans, South 24 Parganas and North Bengal plains. Research is ongoing in various places to locate natural gas. West Bengal is the third largest state