Uttar Pradesh (; Hindi: [ˈʊtːəɾ pɾəˈdeːʃ] (listen), lit. 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 after India had become a republic. It was a successor to the United Provinces (UP) during the period of the Dominion of India (1947–1950), which in turn was a successor to the United Provinces (UP) established in 1935, and eventually of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh established in 1902 during the British Raj. The state is divided into 18 divisions and 75 districts, with the state capital being Lucknow, and Prayagraj serving as the judicial capital. On 9 November 2000, a new state, Uttaranchal (now Uttarakhand), was created from Uttar Pradesh's western Himalayan hill region. The two major rivers of the state, the Ganges and its tributary Yamuna, meet at the Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj, a Hindu pilgrimage site. Other notable rivers are Gomti and Saryu. The forest cover in the state is 6.1 per cent of the state's geographical area. The cultivable area is 82 per cent of total geographical area and net area sown is 68.5 per cent of cultivable area.The state is bordered by Rajasthan to the west, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi to the northwest, Uttarakhand and an international border with Nepal to the north, Bihar to the east, Madhya Pradesh to the south, and touches the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to the southeast. It covers 240,928 km2 (93,023 sq mi), equal to 7.3% of the total area of India, and is the fourth-largest Indian state by area. Though long known for sugar production, the state's economy is now dominated by the services industry. The service sector comprises travel and tourism, hotel industry, real estate, insurance and financial consultancies. The economy of Uttar Pradesh is the third-largest state economy in India with ₹17.05 lakh crore (US$210 billion) in gross domestic product and a per capita GSDP of ₹65,431 (US$820). President's rule has been imposed in Uttar Pradesh ten times since 1968, for different reasons and for a total of 1,700 days. The state has currently three international airports, Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport (Lucknow), Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport (Varanasi) and Kushinagar International Airport (Kushinagar). Allahabad Junction is the headquarters of the North Central Railway and Gorakhpur Railway Station serves as the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway. The High Court of the state is located in Allahabad. The state contributes 80 seats and 31 seats to the lower house Lok Sabha and the upper house Rajya Sabha, respectively. Inhabitants of the state are called either Awadhi, Bagheli, Bhojpuri, Braji, Bundeli, Kannauji, or Rohilkhandi depending upon their region of origin. Hinduism is practised by more than three-fourths of the population, with Islam being the next largest religious group. Hindi is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state, along with Urdu. Bhojpuri is the second most widely spoken language of the state after Hindi. Uttar Pradesh was home to most of the mainstream political entities that have existed in ancient and medieval India including the Maurya Empire, Harsha Empire, Gupta Empire, Pala Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Mughal Empire as well as many other empires. At the time of Indian independence movement in the early 20th century, there were three major princely states in Uttar Pradesh – Ramgadi, Rampur and Benares. The state houses several holy Hindu temples and pilgrimage centres. Uttar Pradesh has three World Heritage sites and ranks first among tourist destinations in India. Uttar Pradesh has several historical, natural, and religious tourist destinations, including Agra, Aligarh, Ayodhya, Kushinagar, Prayagraj, Varanasi and Vrindavan.

Shravasti (Sanskrit: श्रावस्ती, romanized: Śrāvastī; Pali: सावत्थी, romanized: Sāvatthī) was the capital of the ancient Indian kingdom of Kosala and the place where the Buddha lived most after his enlightenment. It is near the Rapti river in the northeastern part of Uttar Pradesh India, close to the Nepalese border.Sravasti is one of the most revered sites in Buddhism. It is believed to be where the Buddha taught many of his Suttas (sermons), converted many of his famous disciples, and performed his "Sravasti miracles" – "great miracle" and "twin miracle" – a subject of numerous historic reliefs, statues and literature in Buddhism. Sravasti is also important to Hinduism and Jainism. The earliest manuscripts of both mention it and weave some of their legends in Sravasti. Archaeological excavations of the Sravasti site have unearthed numerous artworks and monuments related to Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.Sravasti, as a capital, was at the junction of three major trading routes in ancient India, connecting it to the different regions of the Indian subcontinent. Inscribed slabs and statues found at and near Sravasti suggest it was an active Buddhist site and prosperous area from the time of the Buddha (c. 5th-century BCE) through at least the 12th-century CE. It was destroyed and covered with mounds sometime in or after the 13th-century, chronologically marking the arrival and establishment of the Delhi Sultanate. Excavations between 1986 and 1996, led by Japanese archaeologists, suggest that the site continued to be built up and expanded through the 1st millennium. Thereafter, the discovery of numerous charcoal remains and burnt soil suggests that a large portion of the site was burnt down and damaged, while other parts went into disuse and suffered the effects of erosion.The Sravasti site was rediscovered by a team of British and Indian archaeologists in late 19th-century. It has attracted waves of systematic excavations from the late 19th-century through the 1990s. It is now a small town, a center of heritage tourism and religious pilgrimage by Buddhists from around the world.