why different land mass appear in India? L -2 Physical features of India
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India, with an area of 1.26 million square miles (3.29 million kilometers), is the largest democratic country in the world. The country has about 16 percent of the world’s total population and 2.4 percent of the global land area. India is one third the size of the United States and occupies most of the Indian subcontinent in south Asia. Below the Indo-Ganges plain, which extends from the Bay of Bengal on the east to the Afghan frontier and Arabian Sea on the west, the land is fertile and one of the most densely populated regions of the world. The three great rivers, the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra, have their origins in the Himalayas.o
Answer:
India, with an area of 1.26 million square miles (3.29 million kilometers), is the largest democratic country in the world. The country has about 16 percent of the world’s total population and 2.4 percent of the global land area. India is one third the size of the United States and occupies most of the Indian subcontinent in south Asia. Below the Indo-Ganges plain, which extends from the Bay of Bengal on the east to the Afghan frontier and Arabian Sea on the west, the land is fertile and one of the most densely populated regions of the world. The three great rivers, the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra, have their origins in the Himalayas. With one quarter of the land forested, the climate varies from tropical in the south to near-Arctic in the north. The Rajasthan Desert is in the northwest; in the northeast, the Assam Hills receive 400 inches of rain a year. [Source: Jayaji Krishna Nath, M.D., and Vishwarath R. Nayar, Encyclopedia of SexualityLocation: Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan Area: total: 3,287,263 square kilometers, country comparison to the world: 7 land: 2,973,193 square kilometers; water: 314,070 square kilometers. Land boundaries: total: 13,888 kilometers: border countries: Bangladesh 4,142 kilometers, Bhutan 659 kilometers, Burma 1,468 kilometers, China 2,659 kilometers, Nepal 1,770 kilometers, Pakistan 3,190 kilometers Coastline: 7,000 kilometers. Terrain: upland plain (Deccan Plateau) in south, flat to rolling plain along the Ganges, deserts in west, Himalayas in north. Wlevation extremes: lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 meters; highest point: Kanchenjunga 8,598 meters.Land use: arable land: 47.87 percent; permanent crops: 3.74 percent; other: 48.39 percent (2011) . India dominates South Asian subcontinent; near important Indian Ocean trade routes; Kanchenjunga, third tallest mountain in the world, lies on the border with Nepal. [Source: CIA World Factbook =]
India is a country of great diversity with a wide range of landform types, including major mountain ranges, deserts, rich agricultural plains, and hilly jungle regions. Indeed, the term Indian subcontinent aptly describes the enormous extent of the earth's surface that India occupies, and any attempt to generalize about its physiography is inaccurate. Diversity is also evident in the geographical distribution of India's ethnic and linguistic groups. In ancient times, the major river valleys of the Indo-Gangetic Plain of South Asia were among the great cradles of civilization in Asia, as were the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in West Asia and the Huang He (Yellow River) in East Asia. As a result of thousands of years of cultural and political expansion and amalgamation, contemporary India has come to include many different natural and cultural regions. [Source: Library of Congress *]
India occupies much of the South Asian subcontinent, and the Indian mainland stretches eastward from Pakistan in the west to Bangladesh and Burma in the east. On the north, India borders China, Nepal, and Bhutan. The Indian Ocean to the south, the Arabian Sea to the west, and the Bay of Bengal to the east form the country’s coastline. Noncontiguous to the mainland are the Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands located 1,300 kilometers from the mainland in the Bay of Bengal. South Asia covers 4,430,780 square kilometers not including Afghanistan or Tibet. South Asia embraces India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, The Maldives and Sri Lanka. India alone covers 3,287,260 square kilometers.
India’s exact size is subject to debate because some borders are disputed. The Indian government lists the total area as 3,287,260 square kilometers and the total land area as 3,060,500 square kilometers; the United Nations lists the total area as 3,287,263 square kilometers and total land area as 2,973,190 square kilometers. In either case, India is the seventh largest country in the world and about one-third the size of the United States. *
The Indian subcontinent floated across the Indian Ocean, starting out around where Madagascar is today, and rammed into southern Asia tens of millions of year later. The collision took place about 55 million years ago. The force of the impact created the Himalayas, which are still rising.
Almost the entire Indian subcontinent sits on the Indian Plate, which is moving northeastward at a rate of about four centimeters (1.7 inches) a year relative to the Eurasian Plate which sits to north and east and embraces most of Asia and Europe. To the west is the Arabian Plate The collision of Indian plate and the Eurasian plate continues to push up the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. A great amount of energy drives the collision and is released at the boundaries of the plates, which explains partly why India experience some devastating earthquakes.