Class 7 Social Science Chapter 1: Geographical Diversity of India Notes

What is this chapter about?

In 1984 Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian in space, was asked how India looked from up there. He answered with the title of a famous poem, Saare jahan se achchha, meaning better than all the world. This chapter takes a similar view from above. It ‘flies’ over India, the world’s seventh-largest country, from the Himalayas to the islands, and stops for close-ups of a few places along the way. Keep the physical map at the end of the textbook open as you read: its colours show how high the land is.

With its neighbours, India forms the Indian subcontinent. Natural features ring it: the Himalayas in the north, the Thar Desert and the Arabian Sea in the west, the Indian Ocean to the south and the Bay of Bengal to the east. They have shaped India’s climate, culture and history.

The Himalayas

The Himalayas stretch about 2,500 km like a giant wall, with many peaks above 8,000 m. They formed when India, once part of a landmass called Gondwana, drifted north and crashed into Eurasia about 50 million years ago; the land between them crumpled upwards like a pushed carpet. India still pushes about 5 cm a year, so the mountains grow about 5 mm a year. They have three ranges: the snowy Himadri, the milder Himachal with its hill stations, and the low, forested Shivaliks. Melting snow feeds the Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra, which is why the Himalayas are called the Water Tower of Asia. Read more in the Himalayas.

Ladakh, a cold desert

Deserts are not always hot. Ladakh gets very little rain and its winters drop below −30°C. Its rocks, once part of an ocean floor, were folded up with the Himalayas and then carved by wind and rain into a moon-like landscape. Pangong Tso is a salty lake. Snow leopards, ibex and yaks live here, and the region is known for its monasteries and festivals such as Losar and Hemis.

The Gangetic Plains

South of the mountains lie the wide, flat Gangetic or Northern Plains. Himalayan rivers bring water and minerals that make the soil very fertile, so farming thrives and a large share of India’s people live here. Flat land also makes roads and railways easy to build, and the rivers have carried boats and trade for thousands of years. Seen from space at night, the plains glow with lights.

The Thar Desert and the Aravallis

To the west lies the Thar, a dry land of sand dunes as high as 150 m, hot days and cold nights. People here save every drop: they scrub utensils with sand and store rainwater in underground tanks called taankas. East of the desert run the Aravallis, some 2.5 billion years old and among the oldest mountains on Earth. They act as a barrier that keeps the desert from moving east, and they are rich in minerals; Indians were extracting zinc at Zawar over 800 years ago.

The Peninsular Plateau

The triangular south of India is a very old plateau with water on three sides, so it is a peninsula. The tall Western Ghats rise like a wall near the west coast, while the Eastern Ghats are low and split into separate hills. The plateau tilts east, so the Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri and Mahanadi flow to the Bay of Bengal, while the Narmada and Tapti flow west. It is rich in minerals, forests and waterfalls, and is home to tribal communities such as the Santhal, Gond, Bhil and Baiga. See physical features of India.

Coasts and islands

India’s coastline is over 7,500 km long. The narrow west coast, from Gujarat to Kerala, has short, swift rivers that form estuaries, and busy ports such as Mumbai. The wider east coast has big rivers that build fertile deltas, and lagoons such as Chilika and Pulicat. Out at sea are two island groups: the 36 coral islands of Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea and, in the Bay of Bengal, the more than 500 volcanic islands of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with Barren Island, India’s only active volcano. Read coastlines and islands.

The Sundarbans and the Northeast

The journey ends in the east. The Sundarbans, in the delta of the Ganga and the Brahmaputra, is a mangrove forest shared with Bangladesh and home to the Royal Bengal Tiger. Further north, the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia hills of Meghalaya receive some of the heaviest rain in the world; local tribes weave tree roots into living bridges, and Mawlynnong is called the cleanest village in Asia.

Answers to the Big Questions, every Let’s Explore box and all nine questions and activities are in the NCERT solutions for Chapter 1.