The Peninsular Plateau and the Western and Eastern Ghats

A very old tableland

Look at the map of India south of the plains. You see a triangular tableland: high land with a fairly flat top. This is the Peninsular Plateau. It is made of very old, hard rocks, many of them metamorphosed, that is, changed by great heat and pressure. It is part of an ancient land mass called Gondwana land. It stretches from the Aravalli range in the north-west to the southern tip of India. The Narmada river divides it into two parts: the Central Highlands to the north and the Deccan Plateau to the south.

The Central Highlands

• They lie between the Narmada and the Northern Plains.
• The Aravallis run from Gujarat through Rajasthan to Delhi. They are very old and worn down. Their highest peak is Guru Shikhar (1,722 m) near Mount Abu.
• The Malwa plateau lies in the west. Its main rivers are the Chambal, Betwa and Ken.
• The Chota Nagpur plateau lies in the east. The lesson lists the Mahadeo, Kaimur and Maikal hills with it; on a map they lie to its west, in the Satpura (Mahadeo, Maikal) and Vindhya (Kaimur) ranges.
• The Vindhya range lies north of the Narmada and the Satpura range south of it. The Narmada flows west in the valley between them to the Arabian Sea.

The Deccan Plateau

• It lies south of the Narmada.
• A fault separates it from the Chota Nagpur plateau. A fault is a crack in the Earth's crust along which rocks have moved.
• Its black soil area is called the Deccan trap. It formed from lava of old volcanic eruptions and is good for cotton and sugarcane.
• It is edged by the Western Ghats on the west and the Eastern Ghats on the east.
• The two Ghats meet in the Nilgiri hills in the south.

Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats compared

Activity: trace five differences between the two Ghats

1. 1
   On a physical map of India, find the Western Ghats along the west coast and the Eastern Ghats along the east coast.
2. 2
   Make a table with three columns: point, Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats.
3. 3
   Write five points down the first column: continuity, average height, extent, highest peak and rivers.
4. 4
   Look at the colours of the map for height, and at where rivers cut through, to fill each row.
5. 5
   Check your table against the comparison above.
6. 6★
   Record in one sentence which Ghats are higher and more continuous, and why the other is broken.

★ key step

On the map

• Aravalli range: runs south-west to north-east from Gujarat across Rajasthan towards Delhi; Guru Shikhar near Mount Abu is at its south-western end.
• Gir range (Gir hills): low hills in the Saurashtra (Kathiawar) peninsula of southern Gujarat; the Gir forest is the home of the Asiatic lion.
• Vindhya range: east-west, just north of the Narmada, in Madhya Pradesh.
• Satpura range: east-west, south of the Narmada and north of the Tapi.
• Satmala hills: low hills in northern Maharashtra, a spur of the Western Ghats running east between the Tapi and Godavari valleys.
• River Narmada: flows west in the valley between the Vindhyas and the Satpuras into the Arabian Sea (Gulf of Khambhat).
• Malwa plateau: western Madhya Pradesh, north of the Vindhyas.
• Chota Nagpur plateau: Jharkhand and nearby parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal.
• Deccan plateau: the large triangle south of the Satpuras, between the two Ghats.
• Western Ghats: along the west coast, from the Tapi valley south to Kanniyakumari.
• Eastern Ghats: broken hills along the east coast, from Odisha south of the Mahanadi to the Nilgiris.
• Nilgiri hills: where the two Ghats meet, in Tamil Nadu near Karnataka and Kerala; Doda Betta (2,637 m).
• Anaimudi (2,695 m): in the Anaimalai hills of Kerala, south of the Palghat gap.
• Cardamom hills: the southernmost hills of the Western Ghats, on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.
• Mahendragiri (1,501 m): in southern Odisha; highest peak of the Eastern Ghats.
• Palghat (Pal Ghat) gap: a low pass between the Nilgiris and the Anaimalai hills, linking Kerala and Tamil Nadu.