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The Peninsular Plateau: Overview

The Peninsular Plateau: Overview

Peninsular Plateau · 1 min read

The Peninsular Plateau is a tableland of old crystalline, igneous and metamorphic rocks. It is the oldest and most stable part of India, a broken part of Gondwanaland.

Key facts

  • Shape: an irregular triangle with its base along the Delhi ridge / Aravalli-Rajmahal line and its apex at Kanyakumari.
  • Area: about 16 lakh sq km; average height 600-900 m.
  • Slope: generally west to east, shown by the east-flowing Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri (the exceptions are Narmada and Tapi, which flow west through rift valleys).
  • Rocks: Archaean gneiss and schist, Dharwar, Gondwana, Deccan Trap.
  • Frame: Aravalli (north-west), Vindhya-Satpura (north), Western Ghats (west), Eastern Ghats (east), Rajmahal hills (north-east).
  • The plateau has been eroded, peneplained and later uplifted and faulted many times; many hills are relict (residual) mountains.
Peninsular plateau: hills, ranges and plateausAravalli, Vindhya, Satpura, Western and Eastern Ghats, Deccan, Chotanagpur and peaks70°E75°E80°E85°E90°E95°E10°N15°N20°N25°N30°N35°NAravalli RangeVindhya RangeSatpura RangeWESTERN GHATS (Sahyadri)EASTERN GHATSRajmahal HillsMALWA PLATEAUBUNDELKHANDBAGHELKHANDCHOTANAGPUR PLATEAUDANDAKARANYADECCAN PLATEAUKARNATAKA (MYSORE) PLATEAUMEGHALAYA PLATEAUMARWAR PLAINCHHATTISGARH PLAINUTKAL/ODISHA UPLANDSGuru Shikhar 1,722 mAmarkantakDhupgarh 1,350 mMahabaleshwarKalsubai 1,646 mMullayanagiri 1,930 mDoddabetta 2,637 mAnamudi 2,695 mMahendragiri 1,501 mArma Konda 1,680 mParasnath 1,365 mPalghat GapThal GhatBhor Ghatabout 500 kmNSchematic map, not to scale. Boundaries as per India's official position; use Survey of India maps for exact boundaries. JKEdusphere
Brown dashed lines are hill ranges; triangles are peaks, purple squares are ghats (passes). Note how the Western Ghats run parallel to the coast, while the Eastern Ghats are broken by rivers.

Two big divisions

DivisionWhereFeatures
Central HighlandsNorth of the NarmadaAravalli, Malwa, Bundelkhand, Baghelkhand, Vindhya, Chotanagpur
Deccan PlateauSouth of the Narmada, between the GhatsMaharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana plateaus

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Prepared for exam revision from NCERT, standard geography textbooks, the Census of India 2011, the India State of Forest Report, IMD, Ministry of Agriculture and other official sources. Maps are schematic teaching maps, not Survey of India maps, and zone boundaries are approximate. Figures such as production, capacity, counts of parks and ports, and census status change, so check the latest official source before relying on them. Found a mistake? Tell us.