The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of the Indian subcontinent between the 16th and 19th centuries. For some two hundred years, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus river basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan Plateau in South India.It included present day areas of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.