Uttar Pradesh (उत्तर प्रदेश, اتر پردیش, , translation: Northern Province), [often referred to as U.P.] is located in northern India.

Uttar Pradesh covers a large part of the highly fertile and densely populated upper Gangetic plain. While it is only the fifth-largest Indian state in terms of land area, it is the largest in population; It shares an international border with Nepal and is bounded by the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar. The administrative and legislative capital of Uttar Pradesh is Lucknow, and the financial and industrial capital is Kanpur. The state is also home to the tourism capital of India, Agra. The state's high court is based at Allahabad. Other notable cities in Uttar Pradesh include Aligarh, Azamgarh, Bareilly, Faizabad, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Lakhimpur Kheri, Mathura, Meerut, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, NOIDA (New Okhla Industrial Development Authority), Saharanpur and Varanasi (Banaras).

The Indo-Gangetic plain that spans most of the state, has been the seat of ancient Hindu culture, religion and learning and has always played a prominent role in Indian political and cultural movements.