7.1 Indian Geography — Location, Extent & Physical Divisions

Location and Extent

India extends from 8°4′N to 37°6′N latitude and 68°7′E to 97°25′E longitude. It is the 7th largest country by area in the world, covering about 3.28 million sq km, and the 2nd largest by population. India's total coastline is about 7,517 km including the island territories (the mainland alone is roughly 6,100 km), bounded by the Arabian Sea (west), Bay of Bengal (east), and Indian Ocean (south).

Key Locational Facts

• Tropic of Cancer (23°30′N) passes through the middle of the country
• Southernmost point: Indira Point (Nicobar Islands) at 6°45′N
• Standard Meridian (82°30′E) passes through Mirzapur, UP — Indian Standard Time (IST = UTC+5:30)
• Land frontier: ~15,200 km; shares borders with 7 countries

Neighbours, Borders and Boundary Names

Maritime neighbours: Sri Lanka (separated by the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar) and Maldives. Indira Point in the Nicobar Islands is the southernmost point of Indian territory; Kanniyakumari is the southernmost point of the mainland. The Andaman Islands are separated from the Nicobars by the Ten Degree Channel, and India's only known active volcano is on Barren Island.

The Tropic of Cancer (23°30'N) passes through eight states — Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram — which is why roughly half of India is tropical and half subtropical.

States, Union Territories and Coastline

India has 28 states and 8 union territories. Nine states have a coastline — Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal — as do four union territories. Gujarat has the longest coastline; Karnataka's is about 320 km. By area, the largest state is Rajasthan and the smallest is Goa; by population, the largest is Uttar Pradesh and the smallest is Sikkim. Uttar Pradesh borders the most states.

The Six Physical Divisions in More Detail

Physical Divisions of India

India is divided into six major physical regions:

The Himalayas, Peninsula and Coasts — What Gets Asked

Himalayan ranges, north to south: the Trans-Himalayas (Karakoram, Ladakh, Zaskar — with K2 / Godwin-Austen, the highest peak in Indian territory at 8,611 m), then the Himadri or Greater Himalayas (perpetually snow-covered; Kanchenjunga, 8,586 m, is the highest peak wholly within India), the Himachal or Lesser Himalayas (the hill stations and the Kashmir valley) and the Shiwaliks (the outermost, newest range; the Duns such as Dehra Dun lie between the Shiwaliks and the Himachal).

Regional divisions west to east: Punjab Himalaya, Kumaon Himalaya, Nepal Himalaya, Assam Himalaya. The eastern extensions bending south are the Purvanchal — Patkai Bum, Naga, Manipur and Mizo hills.

Northern Plains subdivisions: Bhabar (a porous gravel belt where streams disappear), Terai (marshy, re-emergent streams), Bhangar (older alluvium with lime nodules called kankar) and Khadar (newer, more fertile floodplain alluvium).

Peninsular Plateau components: the Malwa and Deccan plateaus, the Chota Nagpur plateau (India's mineral heartland), and the Karnataka Plateau, which is itself divided into the Malnad and the Maidan — the very division Karnataka geography uses. The plateau is bounded by the Aravalli (India's oldest fold mountains) in the north-west, the Vindhya and Satpura across the middle, the Western Ghats (Sahyadri) and the Eastern Ghats. The Ghats meet at the Nilgiris, whose Doda Betta is 2,637 m; Anaimudi (2,695 m) in Kerala is the highest peak in peninsular India, and the Palghat gap is the major break in the Western Ghats.

Coastal plains: the west coast is narrow and made of estuaries — Konkan in the north, Kanara (Karavali) along Karnataka and Malabar in Kerala. The east coast is broad and deltaic — the Northern Circars and the Coromandel coast. Lagoons are characteristic of the west coast (Vembanad, Ashtamudi) and deltas of the east.

Islands: Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea is coral in origin; the Andaman and Nicobar group in the Bay of Bengal is of volcanic and tectonic origin.

Placing Karnataka on the Indian Map

Reading Indian physical geography with Karnataka in mind pays off directly, because Paper 1 asks the India question and the Karnataka question from the same base:

• Karnataka occupies the southern Deccan Plateau, so its rocks are among the oldest in India and its rivers are rain-fed and seasonal, not snow-fed.
• The Western Ghats form its western wall, creating a sharp rainfall gradient: over 3,000 mm on the Karavali and Malnad, under 700 mm in the northern Maidan — one state containing both a rainforest and a drought belt.
• Because the plateau tilts east, most Karnataka rivers flow east into the Bay of Bengal (Krishna, Kaveri, Tungabhadra) while only the short, steep coastal rivers flow west.
• Karnataka's soils — red, laterite and black — are exactly the peninsular soil types, not the alluvium of the northern plains.

Exam Angle

Locational geography is pure map recall. Build four lists and revise them as lists: extremities and extents, seven land neighbours with boundary names, ranges north to south, and peaks with heights. Watch three classic traps: Indira Point versus Kanniyakumari for "southernmost", K2 versus Kanchenjunga for "highest", and coral Lakshadweep versus volcanic Andamans.