Rajasthan's 342 thousand square kilometers are in northwest India. Two features are pre-eminent: the Thar, or Great Indian, Desert in the northwest, extending into Pakistan; and the Aravalli Range southeast of the desert. Beyond the desert proper the land is semi-arid and sandy, with scrubby vegetations where not irrigated by canals(1). This area is higher than the heart of the Thar, and its southern expanses are drained by the Luni River. That river flows southwest into the low, saline marshes near Gujarat's Rann of Kachch.
The mountains are tallest in the south, near to 2,000 meters. From these heights the Sabarmati flows southwest and the Banas northeast. Southeast of there the land falls down to the Mahi's valley. In Rajastan's northeast the land falls towards the Gangetic plain. This area centers on the Chambal River(2), which receives the Banas on the left and the Parbati on its right.
Sambhar Lake is the state's largest natural body of water. It is a salty sink located in a break in the Aravallis. Of similar magnitude is the Rana Pratap Reservoir on the Chambal River near the state's southern border.
More than 60 million people live here. Most of them speak one of the Rajasthani languages(3). Of these Marwar is spoken by around a third of Rajasthanis, Dhundari(4) by around a quarter, Mewati by more than one in ten, Shekhawati by less than that, Bagri by about one in 20 and other forms by smaller numbers(5). Perhaps almost one in ten speak a dialect of Hindi-Urdu(6).
Hindis are the overwhelming majority, over 90 percent. Moslems are more than one in 20.
The venacular descendents of Sanskrit included Old Gujarati (12th to 14th century E.C. or earlier), which in turn gave rise here to the Rajasthani language group.
By the beginning of the first millenium C.E., the Ajivika religion was gone, and this area had a mix of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, especially the first two. The conquering Iranian groups in the early first millenium C.E., the Sakas and Kusanas, did not change this mix, which persisted into the second millenium.
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(1) Even in the desert is a canal: The Indira Gandhi, formerly the Rajasthan.
(2) The river forms part of the state's border.
(3) Many would call Rajasthani a single language, and its quite diverse forms, dialects.
(4) Also called Jaipuri.
(5) Marwari, Dhundari, Shekhawati and some others form the Marwari group. Together they could be considered one language, or each may be a separate one.
(6) The government of India considers all forms of Rajasthani as dialects of Hindi. This is defensible since a) Rajasthani and central dialects of Hindi form a dialect continuum; b) literary Hindi is a shared heritage; c) they share the Devanagari script; and d) there are many non-linguistic shared elements, most importantly the Hindu religion. On the other hand the government considers Urdu a separate language from Hindi although it is far more similar to the central dialects of Hindi than any form of Rajasthani. This distinction is based on difference of script and religion. Some linguists would go in the opposite direction and break Hindi up further than I do, not only separating Urdu, but treating the Braj dialect, the main one found in Rajasthan, as a separate language, partly for historical reasons.