Concept
Northeast India (officially the North Eastern Region (NER)) is the easternmost region of India representing both a geographic and political administrative division of the country. It comprises eight states—Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura (commonly known as the "Seven Sisters"), and the "brother" state Sikkim. The region shares an international border of (about 99 percent of its total geographical boundary) with several neighbouring countries – with China in the north, with Myanmar in the east, with Bangladesh in the south-west, with Nepal in the west, and with Bhutan in the north-west. It comprises an area of , almost 8 percent of that of India. The Siliguri Corridor connects the region to the rest of mainland India. The states of North Eastern Region are officially recognised under the North Eastern Council (NEC), constituted in 1971 as the acting agency for the development of the north eastern states. Long after induction of NEC, Sikkim formed part of the North Eastern Region as the eighth state in 2002. India's Look-East connectivity projects connect Northeast India to East Asia and ASEAN. Guwahati city in Assam is called the Gateway to the North East and is the largest metropolis in North East India. The earliest settlers may have been Austroasiatic speakers from Southeast Asia, followed by Tibeto-Burman speakers from China, and by 500 BCE Indo-Aryan speakers from the Gangetic Plains as well as Kra–Dai speakers from southern Yunnan and Shan State. Due to the biodiversity and crop diversity of the region, archaeological researchers believe that early settlers of Northeast India had domesticated several important plants. Writers believe that the 100 BCE writings of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian indicate an early trade route via Northeast India. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions a people called Sêsatai in the region, who produced malabathron, so prized in the old world. Ptolemy's Geographia (2nd century CE) calls the region Kirrhadia, apparently after the Kirata population.
