Uttar Pradesh Location and Physical Divisions for Exams

The correct answer is B, 240,928 square kilometres. Uttar Pradesh covers 240,928 square kilometres, about 7.3 per cent of the area of India, which makes it the fourth largest state after Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It is at the same time the most populous state of the country, and that gap between area rank and population rank is itself a favourite question.

Option A, 196,024 square kilometres, is the area of Gujarat. Option C, 308,245 square kilometres, is the area of Madhya Pradesh, the second largest state. Option D, 342,239 square kilometres, is the area of Rajasthan, the largest. Candidates who remember that Uttar Pradesh leads in population often assume it leads in area as well and pick the largest figure offered, which is the trap built into this set of options. Fix the order for area as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and then Uttar Pradesh.

The correct answer is B, 23 degrees 52 minutes north to 30 degrees 24 minutes north. Uttar Pradesh lies between these parallels and between 77 degrees 5 minutes east and 84 degrees 38 minutes east longitude. The southern limit is important: at 23 degrees 52 minutes north it lies just above the Tropic of Cancer, so the line does not touch the state at all.

Option A, 21 degrees 6 minutes to 26 degrees 30 minutes north, is the latitudinal extent of Madhya Pradesh, the state to the south. Option C, 24 degrees 20 minutes to 27 degrees 31 minutes north, is the extent of Bihar, the state to the east. Option D, 27 degrees 39 minutes to 30 degrees 55 minutes north, is the extent of Haryana. All three are neighbours, so the options are built from the states around Uttar Pradesh; remembering the rounded pair, nearly 24 degrees in the south and about 30 degrees in the north, is enough to answer safely.

The correct answer is A, Mirzapur. The standard meridian of India is 82 degrees 30 minutes east, and it passes through Mirzapur district in Uttar Pradesh. Indian Standard Time is reckoned from this longitude and is 5 hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, so the clock of the whole country is set by a line crossing this state.

Option B, Prayagraj, lies close to the meridian and is the usual wrong choice because the city is better known; the Sangam of the Ganga and the Yamuna is its landmark, not the standard meridian. Option C, Varanasi, lies east of the meridian, at about 83 degrees east. Option D, Lucknow, the state capital, lies well to the west, at about 80 degrees 56 minutes east. The chain to remember is 82 degrees 30 minutes east, Mirzapur, Indian Standard Time, five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich.

The correct answer is C, Nepal. Uttar Pradesh has an international boundary of about 579 kilometres with Nepal along its northern edge, and seven districts stand on it: Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Balrampur, Siddharthnagar and Maharajganj. This open border runs through the terai, which is why the belt is important for trade and for border management questions.

Option A, Bhutan, touches Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, not Uttar Pradesh. Option B, China, touches Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh; Uttarakhand, carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000, took that frontier with it, which is why older material sometimes confuses candidates. Option D, Bangladesh, touches West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Only Nepal remains, and the seven border districts are worth learning in order from west to east.

The correct answer is C, nine. Uttar Pradesh is bounded by Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar, which is more neighbours than any other Indian state has. Nepal lies beyond its northern boundary but is a country, not a state, and is counted separately.

Option A, seven, and option B, eight, are the counts candidates reach when they leave out Himachal Pradesh, whose boundary with the state is very short, or Delhi, which is a union territory with a legislature rather than a full state. Option D, ten, comes from counting Nepal along with the nine. The safe way to answer is to go round the state clockwise from the north: Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

The correct answer is B, Bhabhar. The bhabhar is the narrow belt of coarse gravel, pebbles and boulders laid down by hill streams where they leave the Shivalik hills. It is so porous that the smaller streams sink into it and run underground, which is why the belt looks dry even in the rains.

Option A, the terai, lies just south of the bhabhar and is the opposite case: there the same water comes back to the surface as springs, making a damp, marshy and heavily forested strip. Option C, khadar, is the new alluvium of the river flood plains much further south in the Ganga plain, renewed by silt every year. Option D, bhangar, is the older alluvium of the uplands above the flood level, often with lime nodules called kankar. The order from north to south, Shivalik, bhabhar, terai, bhangar and khadar, answers most questions from this chapter.

The correct answer is B, Gomti. The Gomti rises at Madho Tanda in Pilibhit district, flows past Lucknow and Jaunpur and joins the Ganga in Ghazipur district, so its whole course lies inside Uttar Pradesh. That makes it the longest river wholly within the state, and it is also the river on which the state capital stands.

Option A, the Ghaghara, is the longest river in the state measured by the length of its course inside Uttar Pradesh, but it rises in Nepal and so does not lie wholly within the state; the distinction between these two superlatives is exactly what the question tests. Option C, the Ramganga, rises in the Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand. Option D, the Rapti, also rises in Nepal and joins the Ghaghara near Barhaj. Learn the pair: Ghaghara longest in the state, Gomti longest entirely within it.

The correct answer is D, the coastal plain. Uttar Pradesh is landlocked, so it can have no coastal plain at all. The state is divided into three physical regions only: the Bhabhar and Terai belt in the north, the Ganga plain in the middle and the southern plateau and hills beyond the Yamuna.

Option A, the Bhabhar and Terai belt, is the narrow strip at the foot of the Shivalik hills, porous gravel above and marsh below. Option B, the Ganga plain, is the largest division and covers about three-quarters of the state, read as the upper Doab, the middle plain of Awadh and the lower plain of Purvanchal. Option C, the southern plateau and hills, covers the Bundelkhand upland of granite and gneiss and the Vindhyan plateau of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra. Keep the count at three, and remember that the state has neither a coast nor a true mountain division, the Himalayan districts having gone to Uttarakhand in 2000.

The correct answer is C, Bundelkhand. These districts, with Jalaun, Hamirpur and Chitrakoot, form the Bundelkhand upland in the south-west of the state. It is built of ancient granite and gneiss, has thin soil and bare hillocks, is drained by the Betwa and the Ken, and is the most drought-prone part of Uttar Pradesh.

Option A, Rohilkhand, is the north-western part of the Ganga plain around Bareilly, Moradabad and Shahjahanpur, and lies on alluvium, not hard rock. Option B, Awadh, is the middle plain around Lucknow, Ayodhya and Sitapur. Option D, Purvanchal, is the eastern or lower plain around Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh, which merges into Bihar. The division that matters for physical geography is simple: Bundelkhand and the Vindhyan tract of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra are plateau, while Rohilkhand, Awadh and Purvanchal are all parts of the Ganga plain.

The correct answer is B, Khadar. Khadar is the new alluvium of the flood plains, lying low along the rivers and renewed by a fresh layer of silt almost every year. It is the most fertile land of the Ganga plain and carries the heaviest cropping, though it is also the land that floods.

Option A, bhangar, is the older alluvium of the uplands above the flood level, higher, less fertile and often holding lime nodules called kankar. Option C, bhur, names the sandy ridges and windblown sand of the upper Doab, poor in moisture and useful mainly for coarse crops. Option D, usar, also called reh, is the saline and alkaline land of the middle plain, where salts have risen to the surface and little will grow without treatment. The four terms, khadar, bhangar, bhur and usar, are matched with their descriptions in nearly every state paper.

The correct answer is B, 9 November 2000. The hill districts of Uttar Pradesh were constituted as the state of Uttaranchal on 9 November 2000 under the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000, and the state was renamed Uttarakhand in 2007. With that separation Uttar Pradesh lost its Himalayan division and its boundary with China, and was left with the three physical divisions described in this chapter.

Option A, 1 November 2000, is the date Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh. Option C, 15 November 2000, is the date Jharkhand was separated from Bihar. All three states were created in the same month, and papers test whether a candidate can keep the dates apart. Option D, 2 October 2000, is not the date of any state's creation and is offered only because the date is familiar. Learn the sequence Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand in that order.

The correct answer is C, Prayagraj. The Yamuna joins the Ganga at Prayagraj, and the meeting point is called the Sangam. The confluence marks the end of the Ganga-Yamuna Doab, the tract between the two rivers that forms the upper part of the Ganga plain and the most intensively irrigated land in the state.

Option A, Varanasi, stands on the Ganga downstream of the confluence, where the river takes its well known northward bend, but the Yamuna has already merged well before it. Option B, Kanpur, also stands on the Ganga, upstream, in the middle of the Doab. Option D, Mirzapur, lies on the Ganga between Prayagraj and Varanasi and is remembered instead for the standard meridian of India passing through it. Keep the chain in order along the river: Bijnor where the Ganga enters the state, Kanpur, Prayagraj for the Sangam, Mirzapur, Varanasi and then Bihar.