West Bengal is an Indian state, located in East India on the Bay of Bengal. It is India's fourth-most populous state, with over 91 million inhabitants. It has a total area of 34,267 sq mi (88,750 sqkm), making it similar in size to Serbia. A part of the ethno-linguistic Bengal region, it borders Bangladesh in the east and Nepal and Bhutan in the north. It also has borders with five Indian states, including Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam.

The state capital is Kolkata (Calcutta), the third-largest city in India. The geography of West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region in its extreme north, the Ganges delta, the Rarh region and the coastal Sundarbans. The main ethnic group are the Bengali people, with Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority.