Geography Of India

India is a recognisable figure of any world map spaning from the continental wall separating itself “the sub-continent” from the rest of Asia, this is known as the mountainous range of the Himalayas situated in the north. Expanding south towards the nations further reaches the coastline rests on three large bodies of water surrounding the land; The Bay of Bengal to the east, The Arabian Sea to the west and the Indian Ocean to the south. (InterKnowledge Corp. 1997- 2005)

The Himalayas
The Himalayas when translated from Sanskrit, an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan people situated around the Himalayan region, means the “Abode of Snow” and the mountain range is the northern barrier of the Indian sub-continent.

Geographical
This barrier, the Himalayas makes is made up the 92 mountain ranges/areas which are greater than seven thousand three hundred metres tall (which makes for the world’s largest mountain system) (indiasite.com) and arcs around creating a natural border for the Indian people as it spans from the Indus River valley in the west all the way to the Brahmaputra River valley in the east. Overall the Himalayas’ range for approximately two thousand two hundred kilometres long and varies in width from the maximum of four hundred kilometres in the western regions to its minimum width of one hundred and fifty kilometres in the eastern regions.

Ecosystem - River Systems
The river systems that originate from the Himalayas hold the key to survival in this region of the world. The amount of people this mountain range affects after all of these contributing river systems continue into their drainage areas, the population that have made these areas their homes and livelihoods is approximately three billion people (that’s half the world’s entire population).

The major river that affects India that origins from the Himalayas is the Ganges or Ganga River, is the longest river in the Indian subcontinent and the Ganga and its many tributaries are integral to the irrigation system and crop production of many of the towns and regions it passes through before existing in the Bay of Bengal such as Kanpur, Soron, Kannauj, Allahabad, Bhagalpur and Chunar. This Himalayan river (like all the others) is perennial and therefore has a constant flow of water every summer from the melting ice caps of the glaciers in the mountain ranges. (InterKnowledge Corp. 1997- 2005)


http://www.geographia.com/india/
http://www.indiasite.com/land/himalayas.html
http://www.indiasite.com/land/rivers.html
http://www.indiasite.com/land/ganga.html