Static GK Quiz: State Symbols and Nicknames

The chinkara, also called the Indian gazelle, is the state animal of Rajasthan. It is a small antelope of dry scrub and desert that can survive long spells without drinking, which suits the Thar, and the Bishnoi community of western Rajasthan has protected it for centuries.

The hangul or Kashmir stag is the only Asiatic subspecies of the red deer found in India, and it survives mainly in the Dachigam National Park near Srinagar.

The sangai or Manipur brow-antlered deer is found only on the floating phumdi vegetation of Keibul Lamjao National Park in the southern part of Loktak Lake, the only floating national park in the world.

The Great Indian Bustard, known in Rajasthan as the godawan, is one of the heaviest flying birds in the world and one of the most threatened.

The Nilgiri tahr, a stocky wild goat of the high grasslands and cliffs of the Western Ghats, is the state animal of Tamil Nadu.

Jodhpur in Rajasthan is called the Blue City because the old town below the Mehrangarh fort is painted in indigo washed blue, a habit that began with the houses of Brahmin families and spread through the lanes.

Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, on the Noyyal river near the Palakkad gap, grew into a centre of cotton spinning and textile machinery, and the concentration of mills earned it the name Manchester of South India.

Kochi in Kerala has been the leading natural harbour of the Malabar coast since the fifteenth century, when a flood opened the Kochi inlet, and Portuguese, Dutch and English traders each made it their base.

The khejri, Prosopis cineraria, is the state tree of Rajasthan and the lifeline of the desert: it fixes nitrogen, its pods called sangri are eaten, its leaves feed livestock and it gives shade without drawing much water.

The red panda, a small russet mammal of temperate bamboo forest in the eastern Himalaya, is the state animal of Sikkim, and the Singalila and Neora Valley belt is its Indian habitat.

Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, sits on rolling grassy uplands with pine woods, waterfalls and a cool damp climate, and British officers thought the landscape resembled the Scottish highlands, so the name Scotland of the East stuck.