Eddy Jackson MBE | Media Bot Maven

NW India Pakistan |  Terrain | Weather | Landscape

The northern region has five of the seventeen highest summits in the world, together with high mountain ranges in the Karakoram and Himalayas. Although South Asia’s Himalayas are known to possess the highest peaks, the Karakoram range, which passes through Pakistan, India, China, and Afghanistan, has the highest concentration of peaks over 8,800 metres (26,000 feet). The Himalayas are home to the tallest mountains in the world, providing a natural barrier to the coldest polar winds.    

The many rivers from these mountains supply water for the rich Indus-Gangetic Plain. Several significant regions include the large mountains to the north; the Thar Desert in the northwest; the Indo-Gangetic plain, characterised by the three major rivers (the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra); the Peninsular Plateau, divided by the Central Highlands, scattered by shallow valleys and round hills; and the coastal plain, which is the seat of a large number of smaller rivers. India is separated from the rest of Asia by mountain ranges, forests, and deserts--the Himalayan ranges to the north, the Thar Desert to the west, and the Chin Hills and Patkai Range to the east.    

India shares borders with Pakistan in the northwest, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north, and Bangladesh and Myanmar in the east. India borders Pakistan in the east, Afghanistan to the northwest, and Iran in the west, while China borders Pakistan to its northeast. The states and territories of the Far North East are almost separated from the rest of India by Bangladesh, with Bangladesh stretching northwards out of the Bay of Bengal to Bhutan.   

The state of Jammu and Kashmir is claimed by India but is disputed by Pakistan and China, which govern parts of the territory. The disputed regions are Gilgit-Baltistan to the north, and Azad Kashmir, the territory nominally autonomous west of the new state. Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost part of India; their capital is Srinagar (in summer) and Jammu (in winter). At the withdrawal time, Maharaja Hari Singh, ruler of the hilly region Kashmir, preferred independence and maintaining neutrality between successor states to a new state and Pakistan (mostly Muslims). Pakistan holds the northern parts of Kashmir.

Map showing the mountains of Kashmir, a region in the northwest part of the Indian Subcontinent, the most northerly geographic region in South Asia. The area lies where the Indian tectonic plates meet the Eurasian plate—the mountains of Kashmir The Indian tectonic plates. The Satpura range runs parallel to the Vindhya range, which lies north, while the Himalayas separate northern India's Indo-Gangetic Plains from the Deccan Plateau, which lies to the south. The Indo-Gangetic Plain runs parallel to the Himalayas, from Jammu and Kashmir in the west to Assam in the east, draining Punjab, Haryana, Eastern Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.

South of the northern plateaus and west of the Indus river plain are the Saffied Koh ranges along the border, and the Suleiman Range and the Kirthar Range, defining the western edge of the province of Sindh, reaching nearly as far as the southern coastline. Roughly speaking; therefore, the northern highlands are to the north of an imaginary East-West Line; the Baluchistan plateau is west of an imaginary South-West Line; and the Indus River plain lies to the east of this Line. For instance, mountain ranges along the west Afghan frontier are sometimes described separately from the Balochistan Plateau. In contrast, along the east Indian frontier, south of the Sutlej river, the Thar Desert can be considered independent from the Indus plain.   

The landscape ranges greatly, from Indus plains and deserts, forest hills, and plateaus, to rugged mountains with glaciers. The eastern Ghats range from West Bengal in the north, across Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and into Tamil Nadu in the south. Cultivation is poor in the northern mountains, southern deserts, and the western plateaus. Still, the plains of the Indus river are rich soils, which have allowed Pakistan to support its population in average climate conditions.    

India receives over 80 per cent of India’s annual rains from monsoons, and monsoon rainfall is necessary for both subsistence and commercial farming in South Asia. About once every summer, the rains move northwards into Indian/Nepalese foothills for a week or two, leaving the rest of India dry. The summer months are pre-monsoon (although thunderstorms are experienced in northeastern and eastern parts of Bihar, Assam, and West Bengal, the wind is hot in north-western Indian plains, and the wind is hot and dry.)

For instance, in late summer, when all snow has melted, the monsoon contribution is reduced, or the HKH central and eastern regions in times of drought. The glacial recession rates are influenced not just by temperature but by changes in rainfall associated with summer monsoons in east and central HKH and westerly winds during the winter season in the western Himalayas. For the populations downstream, the changes in floods due to monsoon rains and cyclones are likely to matter most, together with changes in the timing of extreme events.    

Parts of the South-Central Peninsula, including Bangalore, receive less than half of the monsoon rain observed farther north and west (although parts of the South-Central Peninsula receive nearly as much rainfall - only not as much, nor as long). A look at the maps and satellite images shows large tracts of the interior of Asia, Asia, that are mostly mountains and deserts. Pakistan has another five mountain ranges over 8000m/26,246ft, as well as over 100 ranges above 7000m/22,965ft.

Cited Sources

• https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/geography/geography.html ⁰
• https://www.nap.edu/read/13449/chapter/4 ¹
• https://www.workingabroad.com/travel/india-climate-and-geography/ ²
• https://cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/g/Geography_of_India.htm ³
• https://www.worldtravelguide.net/guides/asia/india/weather-climate-geography/ ⁴
• https://pressbooks.pub/worldgeo/chapter/south-asia/ ⁵
• https://geography.name/weather-india-afghanistan-bangladesh-pakistan/ ⁶
• https://www.kids-world-travel-guide.com/pakistan-facts.html ⁷
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Pakistan ⁸
• https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/Kashmir-political-map.htm ⁹

#mountain ranges     #afghanistan     #indus river     #monsoon rains     #himalaya mountains     #rainfall     #thar desert     #subcontinent     #sindh     #myanmar