The best way to determine which state you are in within India is by the script. As a general rule, blocky scripts are found in northern and central India whilst curved scripts are found in southern India. Hindi is India’s most abundant language it is witten as the Devanagari script. In its written form, it has a horizontal line running above its letters. Hindi can be distinguished from the Bangladeshi language of Bangala as Hindi has what looks like upside-down, lower-case, backwards ‘h’. Hindi also has backwards capital ‘F’. It is also a common sight to see English in India. Indian license plates for private vehicles tend to be elongated and white. There are often striped curbs in India, most commonly they are yellow and black but they can also be black and white. Regular vehicles in India have white license plates that are elongated. Electric vehicles have green license plates and transport and trucks have yellow license plates. If you happen to see an unblurred license plate in India, you can work out what state you are in. The first two letters on all Indian license plates are an abbreviation of the state name. Motorbikes are so common in India that in most locations you will see multiple motorbikes. Tuk tuks are everywhere in India. Tuk tuks with a black and yellow body (ignore the roof colour) are mainly found in the state of Maharashtra (Mumbai is in this state). India can also be recognised thanks to some of its residents wearing traditional Indian attire. Light posts on utility poles or on their own poles are common throughout India. Indian city names and addresses often appear on shop signs. English is fairly prevalent on signs in India. Hindi is the most common language in India, it appears as Devanagari script. When written, it has a horizontal line above all of its letters. It can be distinguished from the Bangladeshi language of Bangala as it has what resembles upside-down and backwards lower-case ‘h’. It also has letters that resemble backwards capital ‘F’. You can also recognise Hindi as it lacks the triangles of Bangala that point to the left. India has specific languages depending on the region. This means that by working out what language you are looking at, you can narrow down your region and potentially, city. As a general rule, scripts in the south are curvier, whilst scripts in the central/north areas are composed of straight lines. This map shows the different scripts across India. Looking at scripts is one of the best ways to work out what part of India you are in. Devanagari is used to write Hindi and the most common script used across India. There are horizontal lines on top of the letters (like Bengali) but also certain letters resembling spiral staircases. Gujarati is used in western India, in the state of Gujarat. The letters in Gujarati appear unconnected to one another plus the abundance of vertical strokes. Bengali is used in eastern India in the state of West Bengal (next to Bangladesh). There are horizontal line on the letters (similar to Devanagari) but also the abundance of large, black dots - Devanagari largely lacks this. Odia is used in eastern India in the state of Odisha. Telugu is a script used in the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The lack of horizontal lines over the curved letters is distinctive for the Telugu script. This distinguishes the language from Kannada. Kannada is used in the state of Karnataka and can be recognized by the fairly common horizontal lines above the curved letters. These horizontal lines are much rarer in Telugu. Tamil is a script used in the state of Tamil Nadu- across the Gulf of Mannar from Sri Lanka. Tamil stands out as it has these fancy loops in its letters. It is also unique as the characters appear to be two or three characters joined together. Another way of identifying Tamil is that it has a large number of vertical lines that typically lack the horizontal line on top.

Road Lines:

India uses white dividers and has these yellow and black striped curbs / barricades. There are not that many roads covered in India, but those that are clearly have the look like the image above.


License plates:

The first two letters on the License Plates indicate the region the plate was issued.


Vehicles:

Vehicles are often Taxi’s and can have license plates on the side of them (Like Columbia), and as these are often unblurred, you can find the region.


Mumbai paints the bottoms of their trees white and red.

New Delhi has a yellow and black striped pattern on the bottom of their poles.

Hyderabad has a White and brown striped pattern painted on some of their trees.


