World Geography

What the official syllabus says

HCS Preliminary Examination, Paper I: General Studies:

Indian and World Geography.

In Geography, emphasis will be on Geography of India.

Topics in detail

World geography is the smaller share of this subject. Learn the physical principles that also explain India's geography, and the world map well enough to place features and places in the news.

The Earth and its structure

• The solar system; motions of the Earth (rotation and revolution), seasons, latitudes and longitudes, time zones and the International Date Line
• Interior of the Earth: crust, mantle and core; rocks and the rock cycle
• Continental drift, sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics
• Earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis: causes and world distribution

Landforms

• Mountains, plateaus and plains: types and examples
• Weathering and erosion; landforms made by rivers, glaciers, wind, groundwater and sea waves

Climatology

• Composition and layers of the atmosphere
• Insolation and the heat budget; temperature distribution
• Pressure belts and planetary winds; local winds (loo, chinook, foehn, sirocco)
• Humidity, clouds and types of precipitation
• Air masses, fronts, tropical and temperate cyclones; El Nino and La Nina in outline
• World climatic regions (Koppen's scheme in outline)

Oceanography

• Relief of the ocean floor; temperature and salinity of oceans
• Ocean currents of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans; tides
• Coral reefs and marine resources

Human and economic geography of the world

• Continents and major countries: major mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, deserts, grasslands, straits and canals
• World distribution of key resources: minerals, coal, petroleum, forests, water
• Major crops and agricultural regions of the world
• Major industrial regions; world population distribution and its patterns

Biogeography and environment

• Major biomes: tropical rainforest, savanna, desert, temperate grasslands, taiga and tundra
• Global environmental issues: climate change, ozone depletion, desertification, loss of biodiversity

The world map

• Major straits and canals: Malacca, Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, Gibraltar, Bosphorus, Palk Strait; the Suez and Panama canals
• Longest rivers and their basins: Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi-Missouri, Congo, Mekong
• Great deserts (Sahara, Arabian, Gobi, Kalahari, Atacama, Thar) and grasslands (Prairies, Pampas, Steppes, Veld, Downs)
• Highest peaks of each continent and major mountain systems (Andes, Rockies, Alps, Himalayas, Atlas)
• Countries in the news, their capitals and neighbours; India's neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean region

Overlaps

• World physical geography, distribution of resources and geophysical phenomena are part of Mains General Studies I.
• See also Geography of India, where the paper's emphasis lies.