Indian Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: A

It was set up in 1953.

Hindustan Machine Tools was established at Bangalore in 1953 in collaboration with Oerlikon of Switzerland, and became the country's principal maker of machine tools - and later, of watches.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Wheat

Wheat is the principal rabi crop of India. Rabi crops are sown in October and November as the monsoon withdraws and harvested in March and April, growing through the cool dry season on residual soil moisture, winter rain from western disturbances, and irrigation. The other rabi crops are barley, gram, peas, mustard, linseed and lentils. Rice, jute and cotton are all kharif crops, sown with the arrival of the monsoon in June and harvested in September and October. Maize, jowar, bajra, ragi, groundnut, soyabean and sugarcane belong with them. Wheat needs cool weather at sowing and warm dry weather at ripening, which confines it largely to the northern plains - Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. Punjab and Haryana have the highest yields, helped by assured irrigation and the high-yielding varieties introduced during the Green Revolution. India is the world’s second largest producer of wheat after China.

Answer: C

Correct answer: Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu is the southernmost point of the Indian mainland, at about 8°4′N, where the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet. The qualifier is what the question turns on. The southernmost point of the Republic of India as a whole is Indira Point, on Great Nicobar Island, at about 6°45′N - and it subsided by several metres in the 2004 tsunami. The other extremities are worth learning together. The northernmost point is in the Ladakh region; the westernmost is Guhar Moti in the Rann of Kutch, Gujarat; and the easternmost is Kibithu in Arunachal Pradesh. The distance from Kanyakumari to Kashmir is about 3,200 km, and from Gujarat to Arunachal Pradesh about 2,900 km - the east–west span being wide enough that the sun rises in Arunachal nearly two hours before it does in Gujarat, though both keep the same clock time.

Answer: A

Jharia is India's most important coalfield.

It lies in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand and holds almost all the country's prime coking coal, which is why the steel plants depend on it. Underground fires have burned there since 1916 and have consumed a large part of the reserve.

Answer: B

Sonapani is the longest glacier of the Pir Panjal range.

The Pir Panjal is the greatest of the lesser Himalayan ranges, separating the Kashmir valley from the plains, and Sonapani lies in the Lahaul portion of it.

Answer: C

This is the lithosphere.

It comprises the crust and the rigid uppermost mantle, down to roughly 100–200 km, and is broken into the tectonic plates. Below it the asthenosphere is weak enough to flow, which is what allows the plates to move. The cryosphere, by contrast, is the earth's frozen water.

Answer: A

Chittorgarh is the largest fort in India.

It covers about 280 hectares on a hill in Rajasthan and was the capital of Mewar. Three jauhars were performed there, the first in 1303 when Alauddin Khalji besieged it. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Answer: A

Madhya Pradesh is India's only diamond producer.

The Panna belt in the north of the state holds the country's only working diamond mines, and Majhgawan is the principal one. Indian output is small; the Golconda diamonds of legend, including the Koh-i-Noor, came from alluvial workings near the Krishna.

Answer: A

The Aravallis are India's oldest mountains.

They are Precambrian fold mountains, some 670 million years old, and once stood far higher; what remains is the worn stump of a range reduced by erosion. Guru Shikhar on Mount Abu, at 1,722 m, is the highest point left.

Answer: A

Beas, Ravi and Chenab rise in the Himachal mountains.

The Beas rises at Rohtang, the Ravi in the Bara Bhangal, and the Chenab at Bara Lacha as the Chandra and Bhaga. The Sutlej and Indus, by contrast, rise in Tibet and cut across the range.