Geography Quiz: Peninsular Plateau and Coastal Plains

The correct answer is D, Gujarat. Gujarat has the longest coastline of any Indian state. Its shore runs from the Rann of Kachchh round the Gulf of Kachchh, along the whole Saurashtra or Kathiawar peninsula and down the Gulf of Khambhat, and this deeply indented outline gives it far more shore than any other state. Option A is wrong because Karnataka has a short Kanara coast of only a few hundred kilometres between Goa and Kerala. Option B is wrong because Kerala, though famous for its Malabar coast and backwaters, is a narrow state whose coastline is much shorter than Gujarat's. Option C is wrong because Tamil Nadu, with the Coromandel coast, has one of the longer coastlines on the eastern side but still less than Gujarat. Remember that nine states of India touch the sea, and that Gujarat leads the list.

The correct answer is D, Nilgiri. Doddabetta, about 2,637 metres high, is the highest point of the Nilgiri hills, the block where the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats meet, and it overlooks the hill station of Udhagamandalam or Ooty in Tamil Nadu. Option A is wrong because the highest point of the Vindhyan range is a far lower summit in Madhya Pradesh; the Vindhyas form the northern edge of the Deccan, not a two-thousand-metre range. Option B is wrong because the highest peak of the Satpura range is Dhupgarh in the Pachmarhi hills, about 1,350 metres. Option C is wrong because the highest peak of the Aravallis is Guru Shikhar near Mount Abu in Rajasthan, about 1,722 metres. Examiners often mix these four peaks in one question, so learn the set together: Doddabetta with the Nilgiris, Dhupgarh with the Satpuras and Guru Shikhar with the Aravallis.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Anaimudi rises to about 2,695 metres in the Anaimalai hills of Kerala, south of the Palakkad Gap, and it is the highest summit anywhere in the Peninsular Plateau and indeed in India south of the Himalayas. Three ranges radiate from around it: the Anaimalai to the north, the Palani to the north-east and the Cardamom hills to the south. Option A is wrong because Tamil Nadu's highest point is Doddabetta in the Nilgiris, which is lower. Option C is wrong because Karnataka's highest point is Mullayanagiri in the Baba Budan hills of Chikkamagaluru, well under two thousand metres. Option D is wrong because Andhra Pradesh lies along the Eastern Ghats, whose summits such as Arma Konda are lower than the peaks of the Western Ghats. A common trap is to place Anaimudi in Tamil Nadu because the Nilgiris are nearby.

The correct answer is C, Palakkad Gap. The Palakkad Gap, also spelt Palghat, is the widest break in the Western Ghats, lying between the Nilgiri hills to the north and the Anaimalai hills to the south. It carries the main road and railway between Kochi in Kerala and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and also lets the south-west monsoon push inland, which is why the country east of it is drier than the rest of the coast. Option A is wrong because the Thal Ghat is far to the north in Maharashtra and links Mumbai with Nashik. Option B is wrong because the Bhor Ghat, also in Maharashtra, links Mumbai with Pune. Option D is wrong because the Sen Kottai or Shencottah pass lies still further south and connects Kollam with Madurai; it is a smaller opening than Palakkad.

The correct answer is B, Narmada. The Narmada flows west between the Vindhyan range and the Satpuras along a trough formed by faulting, that is, a rift valley, and it empties into the Gulf of Khambhat through a broad estuary rather than a delta. The Tapi behaves in the same way a little to the south. Because the land falls steeply on the western side and the rivers carry little silt to a submerging coast, estuaries rather than deltas are the rule there. Option A is wrong because the Godavari, the largest peninsular river, flows east across the Deccan and builds a large delta in Andhra Pradesh. Option C is wrong because the Krishna also drains east to the Bay of Bengal and forms a delta next to the Godavari. Option D is wrong because the Mahanadi flows east through Chhattisgarh and Odisha and builds the delta on the Utkal coast.

The correct answer is B, Chilika Lake. Chilika lies on the Utkal coast of Odisha, separated from the Bay of Bengal by a long sandbar, and it is the largest brackish-water lagoon in India, famous for its migratory birds and for its population of Irrawaddy dolphins. Option A is wrong because Vembanad in Kerala is the longest lake of India and the largest of the Malabar backwaters or kayals, but it lies on the western coast and is not the largest brackish lagoon. Option C is wrong because Pulicat, on the border of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, is a brackish lagoon too but smaller than Chilika; the barrier island that shelters it carries the Sriharikota launch range. Option D is wrong because Kolleru is a freshwater lake lying between the deltas of the Godavari and the Krishna. All four are Ramsar wetlands, which is why they are set against each other.

The correct answer is B, basalt of the Deccan Trap. Towards the end of the Cretaceous period, fissure eruptions poured out sheet after sheet of lava over western and central India; the hardened lava is basalt and the stepped landscape it makes is called the Deccan Trap. Weathering of that basalt produces the deep black clayey soil known as regur, which holds moisture, swells when wet and cracks when dry, and suits cotton, which is why it is also called black cotton soil. Option A is wrong because granite weathers into red and lateritic soils rather than black clay. Option C is wrong because sandstone yields light sandy soils poor in clay. Option D is wrong because limestone country gives thin calcareous soils and karst features. Link the chain in memory: fissure eruption, basalt, Deccan Trap, regur, cotton.

The correct answer is C, Kerala. The southern section of the western coastal plain, lying in Kerala, is called the Malabar coast, and it is distinguished by its kayals, the shallow lagoons and backwaters such as Vembanad and Ashtamudi that are linked into an inland waterway. Option A is wrong because the Karnataka stretch of the same plain is called the Kanara or Karavali coast. Option B is wrong because Goa lies within the Konkan section, not the Malabar one. Option D is wrong because the Maharashtra stretch is the Konkan coast proper, running from the Daman Ganga to Goa. Learn the four names of the western coast in order from north to south: the Kachchh and Kathiawar coast of Gujarat, the Konkan coast of Maharashtra and Goa, the Kanara coast of Karnataka and the Malabar coast of Kerala.

The correct answer is B, the Chotanagpur plateau. Lying mainly in Jharkhand with parts in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and drained by the Damodar, it holds India's richest concentration of coal along with iron ore, mica, bauxite and copper; the cluster of collieries, steel plants and power stations along the Damodar has earned it the nickname Ruhr of India, after the industrial region of Germany. Option A is wrong because the Malwa plateau in Madhya Pradesh is a black-soil farming region built on lava flows, not a mining belt. Option C is wrong because the Deccan plateau is the whole plateau south of the Narmada and is far too large to carry such a name. Option D is wrong because Bundelkhand is a worn granite upland between the Yamuna and the Vindhyas with no comparable mineral industry.

The correct answer is C, Tamil Nadu. The eastern coastal plain is divided into three named stretches, and the southern one, running along Tamil Nadu, is the Coromandel coast; it receives much of its rain from the retreating north-east monsoon in October and November, unlike the rest of India. Option A is wrong because the Odisha stretch of the eastern plain is called the Utkal coast, the one that carries Chilika lagoon and the Mahanadi delta. Option B is wrong because West Bengal lies at the head of the plain in the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta, which is treated as part of the Northern Plains. Option D is wrong because Gujarat lies on the western coast altogether, on the Kachchh and Kathiawar side. The middle stretch, along Andhra Pradesh, is known as the Northern Circars.