Geographical Diversity of India
India's coastlines
Explore India's long coastlines, with their beaches, cliffs and forests.
India's coastline is over 7500 km long: golden beaches, black rocks, cliffs and green forests.
The two coasts are different:
| West coast | East coast | |
|---|---|---|
| runs | Gujarat to Kerala (through Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka) | Ganga delta to Kanyakumari |
| land | narrow; the Western Ghats come close to the sea | wide plains |
| rivers | short and swift, from the Western Ghats | long, slow rivers |
| at the mouth | estuaries (largest: Narmada, Tapti); coves and creeks | big deltas: Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri |
Why the difference? The plateau tilts east, so the long rivers run east. Long, slow rivers carry lots of mud and drop it where they meet the sea, building deltas. Short, fast rivers on the west don't drop much, so they end in estuaries (wide river mouths).
A delta forms at a river's mouth, where it drops its sediment (mud and sand) into a bigger body of water like the sea or a lake. Over time this builds a triangle or fan of new, very fertile land: ideal for farming.
The west coast has many ports and cities, busy with trade for thousands of years. Mumbai is India's financial centre.
On the east coast are Chilika Lake and Pulicat Lake. They are lagoons: water cut off from the sea by a natural strip of land.
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