Indian Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Correct answer: Kangchenjunga

Kangchenjunga, at 8,586 metres, is the highest peak in India and the third highest in the world. It stands on the border between Sikkim and Nepal. A distinction is worth drawing. Kangchenjunga is the highest point in India but sits on an international boundary; Nanda Devi, at 7,816 metres in Uttarakhand, is the highest peak lying entirely within Indian territory. Which is the correct answer depends on how the question is worded, and both appear in examinations. Everest, the world’s highest at 8,849 metres, lies on the Nepal–Tibet border and not in India at all. K2, the second highest, is in the Karakoram in territory administered by Pakistan and claimed by India. The name Kangchenjunga means the five treasures of the snows, for its five peaks. Its summit is left untrodden by convention, climbers stopping a few metres short out of respect for local belief.

Answer: A

The Radcliffe Line is the boundary between India and Pakistan.

Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew it in five weeks in 1947, dividing Punjab and Bengal, and it was published on 17 August, two days after independence. He had never visited India before. The India-China boundary is the McMahon Line.

Answer: A

The oldest refinery in India is at Digboi in Assam.

It began operating in 1901 with a capacity of 500 barrels a day, built by the Assam Oil Company beside the field discovered in 1889. It is among the oldest working refineries anywhere in the world.

Answer: D

Correct answer: the land lying between two rivers

Doab means the land between two rivers, from the Persian do, two, and ab, water. The best known is the Ganga–Yamuna doab in western Uttar Pradesh, exceptionally fertile alluvial land and among the most intensively farmed and densely populated regions of India. Its agricultural wealth made it strategically important throughout Indian history, and Delhi, Agra and Meerut all lie on or near it. The five rivers of Punjab create four further doabs, each with its own name: Bist, Bari, Rechna, Chaj and Sindh Sagar, formed by the Beas, Ravi, Chenab, Jhelum and Indus. Those names combine the first syllables of the two rivers bounding each - Bari from Beas and Ravi, Rechna from Ravi and Chenab. The related terms are khadar, the newer alluvium of the active floodplain, and bhangar, the older terraces above flood level, which carry calcareous nodules called kankar and are less fertile.

Answer: C

They are the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej.

All three rise within a small area near Lake Mansarovar and Mount Kailash in Tibet, then take entirely different courses: the Indus north-west, the Sutlej west through the Himalayas, and the Brahmaputra east before turning south into Arunachal Pradesh.

Answer: C

Kerala is called the Garden of Spices.

Its wet climate and hill slopes suit pepper, cardamom, ginger, cinnamon and clove, and it was pepper that first drew Arab, Roman and later Portuguese traders to the Malabar coast. Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut in 1498 in search of it.

Answer: C

Madhya Pradesh has the largest forest area.

It has about 77,000 sq km under forest, the most of any state in absolute terms, though as a proportion of its own area several north-eastern states are far more heavily forested. Haryana has the least forest cover in the country.

Answer: C

The United States is the world's largest producer of natural gas.

It overtook Russia in 2011 on the strength of shale gas extracted by hydraulic fracturing, chiefly in Texas, Pennsylvania and Appalachia, and now produces roughly a quarter of the world total. Russia is second.

Answer: D

Indian agriculture is predominantly subsistence agriculture.

Most holdings are small - the average is little over a hectare - and much of the produce is consumed by the farming household rather than sold. Commercial and plantation agriculture exist but occupy a small share of the cropped area.

Answer: D

The word is Japanese.

It combines tsu, harbour, with nami, wave - the wave is barely noticeable in deep water and rears up only on reaching a harbour or shallow coast. Japan's exposure to them gave the word to the world.