Physical features of India: from the mountains to the sea

India’s place in the world

India, a part of Asia, ranks seventh in the world by area. Its mainland stretches roughly from 8°N to 37°N and from 68°E to 97°E (Extra). Mountains in the north, a desert and a sea in the west, the ocean in the south and a bay in the east set it apart from the rest of the continent. A useful way to study it is region by region.

From north to south

If you could cut India from north to south and look at the cut edge, you would see high mountains first, then low, flat plains, and then a raised plateau that drops to the coast. The physical map at the end of the textbook shows the same thing in colour: each shade in its legend stands for a range of heights.

The mountains of the north

The Himalayas run for about 2,500 km and include many peaks above 8,000 m. They are young mountains, still rising as India pushes into Asia. Their snow and glaciers feed great rivers, and their three ranges, the Himadri, Himachal and Shivalik, step down from snowy peaks to forested foothills. In the far north, Ladakh is a cold desert, dry and freezing, with salty lakes and bare, moon-like slopes.

The Northern Plains

Between the Himalayas and the plateau lie the Gangetic or Northern Plains, built by the Ganga, the Indus, the Brahmaputra and their many tributaries. The rivers spread fine, mineral-rich soil, so the land is very fertile. That is why the plains are crowded with farms, villages and cities, and why roads and railways cross them easily.

The Thar Desert and the Aravallis

West of the plains is the Thar Desert, spread across Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana. Wind shapes its sand into dunes up to 150 m high; water is scarce, so people have learnt to store rainwater and use very little. Along its eastern edge run the Aravalli Hills. Once tall mountains, they have been worn down over about 2.5 billion years to hills mostly 300 to 900 m high, with Mount Abu rising over 1,700 m. They hold back the desert and are rich in minerals.

The Peninsular Plateau

The south of India is an old, triangular plateau with water on three sides. The Western Ghats, called the Sahyadri in the north, are tall and continuous and catch heavy monsoon rain, which pours down their sides as waterfalls. The Eastern Ghats are low and split into separate hills. Between them lies the Deccan Plateau, which tilts gently east. So the Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri and Mahanadi flow east into the Bay of Bengal, while the Narmada and Tapti flow west into the Arabian Sea. The plateau holds coal and other minerals, thick forests and many tribal communities.

Coasts, islands and the Northeast

Coastal plains line both sides of the peninsula: a narrow one in the west with estuaries, and a wider one in the east with deltas and lagoons. Beyond them lie the coral islands of Lakshadweep and the volcanic Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In the east, the Sundarbans delta and the rainy Garo, Khasi and Jaintia hills complete the picture.

Why it matters

Each physical feature shapes how people live: what they grow, how they build houses, how they save water and how they travel. Read how the mountains formed in the Himalayas, explore the seaside in coastlines and islands, and find every textbook answer in the NCERT solutions for Chapter 1; see all of the Chapter 1 notes.