Biodiversity of India: Megadiversity, Zones and Species

The biodiversity of India is the huge variety of plants, animals, microbes and ecosystems found across the country. India covers a small part of the world’s land, yet it holds a large share of known species. Its mountains, deserts, forests, coasts and islands make it one of the world’s megadiverse countries.

This article is part of our main guide to biodiversity: meaning, types, importance and threats. Here we cover why India is so rich in life, its zones, its species counts and its endemic species.

Why is India a megadiverse country?

A megadiverse country is one that holds an unusually large share of the planet’s species. NCERT’s Class 12 Biology book (Reprint 2026-27) explains India’s case with two figures. India has only 2.4 per cent of the world’s land area, but 8.1 per cent of global species diversity. NCERT counts India as one of the 12 mega diversity countries of the world.

Government releases (PIB, 9 October 2025 and 30 June 2026) place India among the world’s 17 megadiverse countries. NCERT’s Class 12 book says 12, so write 12 in NCERT-based exams. The 2025 release also says India harbours nearly 8 per cent of the global flora and 7.5 per cent of the global fauna.

Several features explain this richness:

• Meeting point of realms. A biogeographic realm is a huge region whose living things share a long evolutionary history. The Environment Ministry’s 2019 overview says India sits at the tri-junction of the Afro-tropical, Indo-Malayan and Paleo-Arctic realms.
• Many biomes. India’s Fourth National Report to the CBD (2009) lists five biomes in India. These are tropical humid forests, tropical dry deciduous forests (including monsoon forests), warm deserts and semi-deserts, coniferous forests and alpine meadows.
• Wide range of landforms. The 2009 report notes a mountain region of close to 100 million hectares and a coastline of about 8,000 km.
• Tropical location. NCERT points out that much of India lies in tropical latitudes. It links this to India having more than 1,200 bird species.

Crops add another layer of variety. The 2019 overview calls it an acknowledged centre of crop diversity and crop wild relatives. NCERT adds that India has more than 50,000 genetically different strains of rice and 1,000 varieties of mango. To see how these examples fit the three levels of variety, read about genetic, species and ecosystem diversity.

What are the 10 biogeographic zones of India?

A biogeographic zone is a large area with its own climate, landforms and typical communities of plants and animals. India’s zones were worked out by Rodgers and Panwar in 1988. India’s Fourth National Report to the CBD (2009) reproduces the classification from the Wildlife Institute of India. It divides the country into 10 biogeographic zones and 27 biogeographic provinces. A province is a smaller unit inside a zone.

The table uses the zone names exactly as the report’s Table 1.1 gives them. The area shares come from a second table in the same report (National Wildlife Database, Wildlife Institute of India, 2009).

The Environment Ministry’s 2019 overview explains the levels below a zone. A biotic province holds communities separated by barriers, such as the North-west and West Himalaya on either side of the Sutlej River. A land region marks different landforms, such as the Aravalli Mountains and Malwa Plateau. A biome is an ecological unit such as a swamp or a temperate broad-leaved forest.

How many species are found in India?

Species counts keep changing as new plants and animals are described, so always quote a count with its source and year.

Plants

In the 2019 overview, Botanical Survey of India (BSI) data put India’s recorded flora at 47,807 species. This total includes fungi, algae and lichens as well as green plants. Angiosperms (flowering plants) formed the biggest group, with 18,386 species. Fungi came next, with 15,222 species. Of the total flora, 11,554 species were listed as endemic to India. A newer BSI figure is wider still: its Annual Report 2022-23, citing Plant Discoveries 2021, counts 55,048 plant taxa, including fungi, lichens and microbes.

Our guide to plant diversity and its conservation looks at plants in more detail.

Animals

The same 2019 overview gives Zoological Survey of India figures (ZSI, 2018). Of 1,01,167 animal species then identified, 28,537 were endemic, or 28.2 per cent. Invertebrates such as insects, spiders, molluscs and worms made up 90,986 of them.

The count has grown since then. In June 2024, PIB reported that India had become the first country to prepare a checklist of its entire fauna, covering 104,561 species. A PIB release of 30 June 2026 says Animal Discoveries 2025 added 483 species new to science and 226 species recorded in India for the first time. With these additions and the updated checklist (Version 3.0), India’s documented faunal diversity reached 1,05,953 species.

Species still to be found

NCERT’s Class 12 book makes a striking estimate. Using the ecologist Robert May’s global figures, it suggests India probably has more than 1,00,000 plant species and more than 3,00,000 animal species still undiscovered. Many may disappear before anyone names them.

Which biodiversity hotspots are in India?

A biodiversity hotspot is a region with very high species richness, many endemic species and fast habitat loss. The PIB release of 9 October 2025 says India is home to four of the 36 global hotspots. India’s Fourth National Report to the CBD (2009) names them as the Himalaya, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, and Sundaland.

India holds only part of each one. According to the 2019 overview, its share includes the north-eastern Himalaya, parts of Assam and Meghalaya, the Western Ghats and the Nicobar Islands. NCERT’s Class 12 book names only three hotspots for India and leaves out Sundaland. For maps, key species and threats, read our full guide to the four biodiversity hotspots in India.

What are endemic species of India? Examples

An endemic species occurs naturally in only one area and nowhere else in the world. The PIB release of October 2025 says 28 per cent of India’s plants and over 30 per cent of its animals are endemic.

Some animal groups are far more endemic than others. ZSI data (ZSI, 2018) in the 2019 overview show these levels of endemism:

The 2009 Fourth National Report names the golden langur and the pygmy hog as endemics of the Himalaya hotspot. The langur has a restricted range in the Eastern Himalaya. This hotspot is not India alone: the 2019 overview says it also takes in Bhutan and Nepal. The same report (MoEF, 2009) says 1,500 flowering plant species, or 38 per cent, are endemic to the Western Ghats. Our guide to India’s four hotspots gives more examples. Learn how endemism arises in our article on endemic species with examples from India.

Exploring the rich biodiversity of India: from mountains to the sea

India’s variety is easiest to understand ecosystem by ecosystem. NCERT’s Class 12 book notes that India’s deserts, rainforests, mangroves, coral reefs, wetlands, estuaries and alpine meadows give it greater ecosystem diversity than Norway.

Forests

Forests hold much of India’s land biodiversity. The 2019 overview records 16 forest type groups for India (Champion and Seth, 1968). Quoting Singh and Singh (2011), it says nearly 38.2 per cent of forest area is tropical dry deciduous. Another 30.3 per cent is tropical moist deciduous.

Deserts

India has both hot and cold deserts. The 2019 overview places cold deserts in Ladakh. The Thar Desert is shared by Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan. Its Indian part hosts 6.4 per cent endemic plant species, and the overview names Ceropegia bulbosa as a threatened example.

Wetlands

Wetlands are lakes, marshes, rivers and lagoons that are wet for all or part of the year. The National Wetland Atlas 2013, quoted in the 2019 overview, mapped wetlands over about 4.6 per cent of India’s land area. The same overview describes Loktak Lake in Manipur. Its Keibul Lamjao National Park shelters the brow-antlered deer, or sangai, on floating mats of vegetation called phumdis.

Coasts and seas

India’s coasts include estuaries, mangroves, coral reefs, lagoons and seagrass meadows. The 2019 overview reports 20,444 animal species from India’s marine and coastal environments, about 7 per cent of global marine diversity. India has 5,790 km² of coral reefs, about 1 per cent of the world’s reef area. The Sundarbans in West Bengal hold almost half of India’s mangrove area, according to the same overview.

Why is India’s biodiversity under threat?

India’s species face the same pressures seen worldwide. These include habitat loss, over-use of resources, invasive alien species and pollution. NCERT’s Class 12 book gives an older textbook figure: more than 650 species from India face the threat of extinction. Our article on the causes and effects of biodiversity loss explains each threat with examples.

India protects its wildlife both inside and outside natural habitats. National parks, sanctuaries, biosphere reserves and sacred groves protect species where they live. Zoos, botanical gardens and seed banks act as a back-up. Compare the two approaches in our guide to in situ and ex situ conservation.