According to the statutes of the society the society is dealing with the philately and postal history of the Indian Subcontinent, the countries of the Himalayas and the countries and areas having been administered by an Indian postal authority of for any time.

British-Indian Empire 1909

(click into the picture for a detailed view)





Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:British_Indian_Empire_1909_ Imperial_Gazetteer_of_India.jp

The postal history of the Indian Subcontinent is off course affected by the British-Indian colonial empire. From this we derive the collecting areas:

• British-India

• Indian states

• Burma

• Ceylon

Beneath the British the Danes, the Dutch, the French, and the Portuguese had been present as colonial powers or having trading posts. Partly only pre-philatelic partly with stamps we thus have the collecting areas:

• Danish-India

• French-India

• Dutch-India

• Portuguese-India

States of the Indian Sub-continent /
South Asia






Derived from a map from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asia

Independent states have emerged from the colonies due to the political changes presenting us the collecting areas:

• Pakistan

• India

• Nepal

• Bhutan

• Bangladesh (since 1972 previously East Pakistan)

• Burma (since 1989 named as Myanmar)

• Ceylon (since 1972 named as Sri Lanka)

More recently the term “Indian Subcontinent” is often replaced in the political context by the term “South Asia” or “Southern Asia”.
In the „South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation“ (SAARC) the states Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are cooperating.
The „United Nations geoscheme“, a classification of the earth into „macro-geographical regions“ for statistical purposes, includes the Iran and The Maldives, while Burma, Thailand and Tibet are excluded from „Southern Asia“.

Between British-India and Afghanistan always close (more or less hurtful) relations existed. So we deal with the collecting area:

• Afghanistan

Tibet has to be count to the countries of the Himalayas too. Exposed to the interests of the British during the British-Indian Empire times and now under the rule of the Chinese it yet has its own postal history:

• Tibet

The countries Iran and The Maldives (until now) have not been in the focus of the FGI.

Collecting interests of some of our members have brought into focus Thailand. This country always was independent, it never was part of the British colonial empire. Anyhow members of the FGI have dealt with this collecting area:

• Thailand (known until 1939 as Siam)