World Geography

What the official syllabus says

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

• Physical Aspects: - Mountains, Plateaus, Plains & Deserts
• Major Rivers & Lakes
• Natural Vegetation
• Agriculture: Type, Distribution & important crops
• Major Industrial Regions and Industries.
• Transport Network.
• Environmental Issues - Desertification, Deforestation, Climate Change & Global Warming, Ozone Layer Depletion.

Topics in detail

Physical aspects

• Mountains: fold, block, volcanic and residual mountains; the Himalaya, Alps, Rockies, Andes, Atlas, Urals, Appalachians, Great Dividing Range; highest peaks by continent
• Plateaus: intermontane, piedmont and continental (Tibet, Deccan, Colorado, Brazilian, Ethiopian, Arabian, Mongolian)
• Plains: alluvial, glacial, loess and coastal plains (Indo-Gangetic, North European, Great Plains, Pampas)
• Deserts: hot deserts, mostly on the western margins of continents in the trade-wind belt (Sahara, Kalahari, Atacama, Arabian, Great Australian, Thar), cold deserts (Gobi, Patagonia); landforms made by wind

Rivers and lakes

• Major river systems: Nile, Amazon, Mississippi-Missouri, Yangtze, Huang He, Mekong, Ganga-Brahmaputra, Indus, Tigris-Euphrates, Danube, Rhine, Volga, Congo, Niger, Zambezi, Murray-Darling
• Lakes: Great Lakes of North America, Caspian Sea, Baikal, Victoria, Tanganyika, Titicaca, Dead Sea, Aral Sea (its shrinking); types of lakes by origin

Natural vegetation

• Biomes: tropical rainforest, tropical deciduous (monsoon), savanna, hot desert, Mediterranean, temperate grasslands (prairie, steppe, pampas, veld, downs), temperate deciduous, taiga (coniferous), tundra
• Relationship of vegetation with climate and soil

Agriculture

• Types: subsistence, shifting, intensive and extensive, plantation, mixed farming, dairy, Mediterranean agriculture, commercial grain farming
• Distribution of crops: rice, wheat, maize, cotton, sugarcane, tea, coffee, rubber, cocoa; leading producing regions

Industrial regions, industries and transport

• Industrial regions: north-eastern USA and the Great Lakes, Ruhr, the English Midlands, Japan’s Pacific belt, eastern China, the Donbas
• Industries: iron and steel, textiles, petrochemicals, automobiles, electronics and IT; factors of location
• Transport: trans-continental railways (Trans-Siberian, Canadian Pacific), major highways, inland waterways, ocean routes and canals (Suez, Panama), straits, major ports, air routes, pipelines

Environmental issues

• Desertification: causes and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD); the Sahel
• Deforestation: drivers, effects on biodiversity and climate; REDD+
• Climate change and global warming: greenhouse gases, impacts; UNFCCC, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement
• Ozone layer depletion: CFCs, the ozone hole, the Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol (Kigali Amendment)

Map work

• Locate on an outline map: the major ranges, plateaus and deserts of each continent
• Rivers with their source, mouth and the countries they cross; lakes with their country
• Important straits, canals and ports along the main shipping routes
• Leading producers of the main crops and the location of industrial regions

Overlaps

Mains Paper II (Unit III, Earth Science) covers the world’s physical geography in more depth.