The Thar Desert

The Great Indian Desert (Thar) lies in the north-west of India, west of the Aravalli, in Rajasthan, parts of Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat; the rest lies in Pakistan.

Features

• Area: about 2 lakh sq km (about 60 per cent of Rajasthan).
• Rainfall below 25 cm in the west (Jaisalmer, Bikaner) and up to 50 cm in the east; very hot summers (Phalodi recorded 51°C in 2016, India's highest official temperature) and cold winter nights.
• Sand dunes: barchans (crescent-shaped, mobile), longitudinal (seif) dunes, transverse dunes; Mohanjodaro-type mounds and the Sam dunes (Jaisalmer).
• Marusthali (true desert, west) and Bagar (semi-arid, east, between desert and the Aravalli).
• Salt lakes: playas (dhands): Sambhar (largest inland salt lake in India), Didwana, Pachpadra, Lunkaransar, Phalodi.
• Luni is the only river of significance: it rises near Ajmer, ends in the Rann of Kutch; salty below Balotra; Ghaggar-Hakra is a seasonal river (ancient Saraswati channel).
• The Rann of Kutch (Great and Little Rann) is a salt marsh; Little Rann is the home of the Indian wild ass (Khur). Wind erosion shapes mushroom rocks.
• Indira Gandhi Canal (earlier Rajasthan Canal), about 650 km, longest canal in India, from the Harike barrage (Beas-Sutlej); it irrigates Ganganagar, Bikaner, Jaisalmer.
• Pokhran (Jaisalmer): nuclear tests in 1974 and 1998.
• Wildlife: Great Indian Bustard (Godawan), chinkara, desert fox; Desert National Park (Jaisalmer-Barmer).

Climate and crops

• Millets (bajra), moth, guar, groundnut, and with canal water wheat, cotton, mustard in Sri Ganganagar.