The state is known for its waterfalls, hills and holy places; Baidyanath Dham, Parasnath, Dewri and Rajrappa are major religious sites.

[12] Jharkhand suffers from what is sometimes termed a resource curse: it accounts for more than 40% of India's mineral production but 39.1% of its population is below the poverty line and 19.6% of children under five years of age are malnourished.

The name is first found on a 13th-century copper plate in Kendrapada, Odisha region from the reign of Narasimha Deva II of Eastern Ganga dynasty.

[27] Samudragupta, while marching through the present-day Chotanagpur region (North and South), directed the first attack against the kingdom of Dakshina Kosala in the Mahanadi valley.

[41] Subjugation, colonisation and imposition of taxes by the British East India Company resulted in spontaneous resistance from the local people.

Chuar Rebellion, the first revolt against the British East India Company led by Jagannath Singh Patar in 1767 with the Bhumij tribals.

During the 19th century, large numbers of santals from Manbhum, Hazaribagh, Midnapore were settled by British in Damin-i-koh to cultivate the land and generate revenue.

[47] The brothers Nilambar and Pitambar were chiefs of Bhogta clan of the Kharwar tribe who held ancestral jagirs with many Chero Jagirdars and led revolt against the British East India company.

In Ramgarh, Subhas Chandra Bose was seen as president of the All India Forward Block and M. N. Roy was seen as leader of the Radical democratic party.

In July 1988, the Bharatiya Janata party led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi decided to demand a separate state, Vanachal, comprising the forest region of South Bihar in Jamshedpur.

Chotanagpur and Santal Pargana development boards were constituted under the chairmanship of the then chief minister of Bihar under the provision of the fifth schedule in 1972.

[31] The dynamics of resources and the politics of development still influence the socio-economic structures in Jharkhand, which was carved out of the relatively underdeveloped southern part of Bihar.

[70] Part of this is due to the fact that the state harbours an abundance of natural resources, while its people live in abject poverty and destitution.

[71] The impoverished state provides ample recruits for communist insurgents, who argue that they are fighting on behalf of the landless poor and tribals that see few benefits from the resource extractions.

[71] In response, the insurgents have recently begun a campaign of targeting infrastructure related to the extraction of resources vital for Indian energy needs, such as coal.

[69] On 5 March 2007, Sunil Mahato, a member of the national parliament, was shot dead by Naxalite rebels near Kishanpur while watching a football match on the Hindu festival of Holi.

His widow, Suman Mahato, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha candidate, won the Jamshedpur Lok Sabha by-election in September 2007 and served in parliament until 2009.

[81] Jharkhand has accorded additional official language status to Angika, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bhumij, Ho, Kharia, Kurukh, Khortha, Kurmali, Magahi, Maithili, Mundari, Nagpuri, Odia, Santali and Urdu.

Large deposits of coal and iron ore support concentration of industry, in centres like Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Bokaro and Ranchi.

Farmers in Jharkhand produce several crops such as rice, wheat, maize, pulses, potatoes, and vegetables such as tomato, carrots, cabbage, brinjal, pumpkin, and papaya.

Handia is culturally associated with natives, i.e., Sadans and Tribals; this drink is consumed by both men and women on social occasions like marriage and festivals.

As per the 2011 census conducted by Government of India the official literacy rate for the state was 66.41% (male: 76.84%; female: 55.42%) with nine districts above the average literacy rate:[122][123] Since the formation of the new state, the Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) has been implementing four projects to spread elementary education: DPEP, SSA, NPEGEL, and KGBV.

The state has been moving towards the goal of universal elementary education but the target of 100% enrolment and retention of children in schools has not yet been attained.

[124] Jharkhand has made primary education so accessible that 95% of children of ages 6–11 are enrolled in school, as opposed to 56% in 1993–94; this will likely improve literacy a great deal.

In 2009 Franz Gastler established Yuwa School a NGO in Hutup village in Ranchi district with helps of friends to use football as a platform to combat child marriage, illiteracy and human trafficking in rural India.

The Itki TB Sanatorium is well equipped and accredited by the Indian government for quality assurance and Culture and Drug Sensitivity Testing for M.TB.

In the same way, Bokaro General Hospital equipped with modern facilities for the treatment of cancer and heart-related problems with the capacity of 1100 beds one of the largest in eastern India.

[131] Researchers at Princeton University and the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi are currently investigating defluoridation options, while performing an epidemiological survey to assess the extent of fluoride linked health problems and the impact of future interventions.

Jaipal Singh was the captain of the hockey team that won the first gold medal for India in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam.

Other sportspeople include Deepika Kumari, a young archer who won gold medal in the 2010 Commonwealth games in the women's individual recurve event.