Bihar Mixed Quiz: Set 2

The southern plateau districts of Bihar became the state of Jharkhand on 15 November 2000, the birth anniversary of Birsa Munda, under the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000.

Bihar lies in the northern plain, where summers are hot, the rain comes in a single spell from the south-west monsoon between mid-June and early October, and winters are cool and dry with occasional cold waves.

In August 2008 the eastern embankment of the Kosi gave way at Kusaha, upstream of the Bhimnagar barrage and inside Nepal.

Bihar covers 94,163 square kilometres, which makes it the twelfth largest state of India by area, although it stands third in population after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

South of the Ganga, between the river and the higher ground inland, lies a stretch of low saucer-like land called tal, of which the Mokama tal is the largest.

The Kosi earns the name because it brings an exceptionally heavy load of silt down from Nepal, drops it the moment it reaches the flat North Bihar plain, raises its own bed above the surrounding land and then breaks out into a new channel.

A chaur, also called a maun, is a shallow saucer-shaped depression in the north Bihar plain, left behind when a silt-laden river abandons a channel and raises the land around it.

The rain comes to Bihar with the Bay of Bengal branch of the south-west monsoon, which enters from the east and loses moisture as it moves inland.

The sanctuary was notified in 1991 along a stretch of about sixty kilometres of the Ganga between Sultanganj and Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur district.

Stated exactly, Bihar lies between 24 degrees 20 minutes 10 seconds north and 27 degrees 31 minutes 15 seconds north latitude, and between 83 degrees 19 minutes 50 seconds east and 88 degrees 17 minutes 40 seconds east longitude.

Karail is the dark, sticky clay of the Son valley and the adjoining parts of Rohtas and Bhojpur districts.

The Ganga comes into Bihar from Uttar Pradesh near Chausa, flows from west to east for about 445 kilometres and leaves the state for West Bengal near Rajmahal, splitting Bihar into the North Bihar plain and the South Bihar plain on the way.

The Kaimur plateau is a block of Vindhyan sandstone that continues into Bihar from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and occupies the south-western corner of the state in Rohtas and Kaimur districts.

Kishanganj lies in the extreme north-east of the state, in the corner nearest the Darjeeling hills and the moist Bengal duars, and it is the first part of Bihar the monsoon current reaches.

A chaur is a shallow, saucer-shaped basin in the flat North Bihar plain that holds water for much of the year because the land has almost no slope and the rivers have raised their own beds.

Bihar has an international boundary of about 726 kilometres with Nepal along its entire northern edge, and the rivers that make north Bihar fertile and flood-prone, the Gandak, Bagmati, Kamla Balan and Kosi, all cross that boundary into the state.

The Valmiki Tiger Reserve lies in West Champaran district, along the Nepal border at the foot of the Shivaliks, and it is the only tiger reserve in Bihar.

Bihar measures about 345 kilometres from north to south and about 483 kilometres from east to west, so it is a broad band lying across the Ganga rather than a tall state.

The Phalgu, or Falgu, is formed by the union of the Lilajan and the Mohana a little above Gaya and flows past the city with a wide bed that stays sandy and dry for most of the year.

It is spread across Kaimur and Rohtas districts on the Kaimur plateau in the south-west of the state, and by area it is the largest protected area in Bihar.