Geography of India

What the official syllabus says

RPSC, RAS/RTS Preliminary Examination, General Knowledge and General Science, under “Geography of World and India”, Geography of India:

• Physiographic division
• Climate
• Major Rivers and Lakes
• Irrigation
• Agriculture: Important Crops
• Minerals- Metallic and Non- Metallic
• Major Industrial Regions and Important industries

Topics in detail

Physiographic divisions

• Location, extent, neighbours, standard meridian (82½° E) and the Tropic of Cancer
• The Himalaya: Trans-Himalaya, Greater, Lesser and Shiwalik ranges; regional divisions; passes
• The Northern Plains: bhabar, terai, bhangar, khadar; Punjab, Ganga and Brahmaputra plains
• The Peninsular Plateau: Aravalli, Vindhya, Satpura, Western and Eastern Ghats, Deccan, Malwa, Chhotanagpur plateaus
• The Indian (Thar) Desert, coastal plains and islands (Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep)

Climate

• Factors: latitude, the Himalaya, distance from the sea, jet streams, El Nino and the Indian Ocean Dipole
• The monsoon mechanism; onset and withdrawal; the four seasons; western disturbances
• Distribution of rainfall and temperature; climatic regions (Koppen); droughts and floods

Rivers and lakes

• Himalayan rivers: Indus, Ganga and Brahmaputra systems and their tributaries
• Peninsular rivers: Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri (east-flowing); Narmada, Tapi, Mahi, Sabarmati, Luni (west-flowing)
• Lakes: freshwater (Wular, Dal, Loktak), saline (Sambhar) and brackish lagoons (Chilika, Pulicat), man-made reservoirs
• River water disputes and interlinking of rivers (concept)

Irrigation

• Sources: wells and tube wells, canals, tanks; regional pattern
• Multipurpose projects: Bhakra Nangal, Hirakud, Damodar Valley, Sardar Sarovar, Nagarjuna Sagar, Tehri, Indira Gandhi Canal
• Micro-irrigation (drip, sprinkler), watershed development, groundwater depletion

Agriculture

• Cropping seasons: kharif, rabi and zaid
• Food crops (rice, wheat, millets, pulses) and their leading states
• Cash crops: cotton, jute, sugarcane, oilseeds, tea, coffee, rubber, spices
• Green, white, blue and yellow revolutions (concept)

Minerals

• Metallic: iron ore (Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka), manganese, bauxite, copper, lead and zinc (Rajasthan), gold
• Non-metallic: mica, limestone, gypsum, dolomite, rock phosphate
• Energy minerals: coal (Gondwana and tertiary), petroleum and natural gas, uranium and thorium

Industrial regions and industries

• Industrial regions: Mumbai-Pune, Hugli, Bengaluru-Chennai, Gujarat, Chhotanagpur, Gurugram-Delhi-Meerut, Visakhapatnam-Guntur, Kollam-Thiruvananthapuram
• Industries: iron and steel, cotton textiles, sugar, cement, petrochemicals, automobiles, IT and electronics; factors of location
• Industrial corridors (Delhi-Mumbai and others) and their links to Rajasthan

Map work and links with Rajasthan

• Physiographic map of India: ranges, passes, plateaus and the Thar
• River map: rivers with their source, states crossed and dams; Rajasthan’s share in inter-state rivers
• Mineral and industrial maps: mining belts and industrial regions, including lead, zinc and copper in Rajasthan
• Irrigation projects shared with Rajasthan: Bhakra Nangal, Chambal, Mahi, Narmada, Indira Gandhi Canal

Overlaps

Mains Paper II (Unit III, Part B) covers India’s geography in descriptive form; Rajasthan is on its own page, Geography of Rajasthan.