Question

How do the physical characteristics of India affect life in the country

Answer 1

The effects of geography on culture can be understood from the following correlation as an example.

Hills and mountains - In general, they act as a physical barrier between the two region. Until very recently, they restricted the movements of the people. The restricted movement compelled them to follow different culture and it also prohibited the intermixing of two different cultures. For example, the Vindhyan ranges act as north-south cultural divide in India. We can see that north to Vindhyan, there is a dominance of Hindi language, whereas towards south, there is wide range of linguistic diversity like Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam and so on.

Climatic conditions - In general, climate determines the food habits, clothing, immunity against certain kind of diseases, etc. For example, people living in tropical regions mostly wear half sleeves cloths [lungi and mostly white shirt in India] as against the person living in the sub-polar region who wear fully sleeves cloths. Similarly, in the subtropical regions [mostly northern states in India], the crops like wheat is cultivated while in the tropical region [southern states], the crops like rice and coconut are cultivated on large scale.

It is a well known fact that most of the inventions were done by Europeans and Americans. Ever wondered how? There is one geographical reason behind it apart from host of other factors. In sub-polar and polar region the length of day/night are very long. It lasts up to 6 months. In such a climatic conditions, it does not encourage the person to roam around, it keeps him locked inside the house. Such conditions are suitable to do research which ideally demands a lot of time.