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Geography

The Deccan plateau is a topographically variegated region located south of the Gangetic plains -the portion lying between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal - and includes a substantial area to the north of the Satpura Range, which has popularly been regarded as the divide between northern India and the Deccan. The plateau is bounded on the east and west by the Ghats, while its northern extremity is the Vindhya Range. The Deccan's average elevation is about 600 metres (2,000 ft), sloping generally eastward; its principal rivers, the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri, flow from the Western Ghats eastward to the Bay of Bengal. Tiruvannamalai and Vellore in Tamil Nadu is often regarded as the Southern gateway of the Deccan plateau.

The Western Ghats mountain range is very massive and blocks the moisture from the southwest monsoon from reaching the Deccan Plateau, so the region receives very little rainfall. The eastern Deccan Plateau is at a lower elevation spanning the southeastern coast of India. Its forests are also relatively dry but serve to retain the rain to form streams that feed into rivers that flow into basins and then into the Bay of Bengal.

Most Deccan plateau rivers flow south. Most of the northern part of the plateau is drained by the Godavari River and its tributaries, including the Indravati River, starting from the Western Ghats and flowing east towards the Bay of Bengal. Most of the central plateau is drained by the Tungabhadra River, Krishna River and its tributaries, including the Bhima River, which also run east. The southernmost part of the plateau is drained by the Kaveri River, which rises in the Western Ghats of Karnataka and bends south to break through the Nilgiri Hills at the island town of Shivanasamudra and then falls into Tamil Nadu at Hogenakal Falls before flowing into the Stanley Reservoir and the Mettur Dam that created the reservoir, and finally emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

On the western edge of the plateau lie the Sahyadri, the Nilgiri, the Anaimalai and the Elamalai Hills, commonly known as Western Ghats. The average height of the Western Ghats, which run along the Arabian Sea, goes on increasing towards the south. Anaimudi Peak in Kerala, with a height of 2,695 m above sea level, is the highest peak of peninsular India. In the Nilgiris lie Ootacamund, the well-known hill station of southern India. The western coastal plain is uneven and swift rivers flow through it that form beautiful lagoons and backwaters, examples of which can be found in the state of Kerala. The east coast is wide with deltas formed by the rivers Godavari, Mahanadi and Kaveri. Flanking the Indian peninsula on the western side are the Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea and on the eastern side lie the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal.

The eastern and southeastern Deccan plateau regions which include Rayalaseema, Andhra Pradesh, majority of Bengaluru division, Part of Tamilnadu and Telangana, is made of vast sheets of massive granite rock, which effectively traps rainwater. Under the thin surface layer of soil is the impervious gray granite bedrock. It rains here only during some months.

The plateau is drained by the Godavari River taking a southeasterly course; by the Krishna River, which divides the peneplain into two regions; and by the Pennai Aaru River flowing in a northerly direction. The plateau's forests are moist deciduous, dry deciduous, and tropical thorn.

Most of the population of the region is engaged in agriculture; cereals, oilseeds, cotton, and pulses (legumes) are the major crops. There are multipurpose irrigation and hydroelectric-power projects, including the Pochampad, Bhaira Vanitippa, and Upper Pennai Aaru. Well known Industries are cotton textiles, sugar, foodstuffs, tobacco, paper, machine tools, and pharmaceuticals. Cottage industries are forest-based (timber, firewood, charcoal, bamboo products) and mineral-based (asbestos, coal, chromite, iron ore, mica, and kyanite).

Having once constituted a segment of the ancient continent of Gondwanaland, this land is the oldest and most stable in India. The Deccan plateau consists of dry tropical forests that experience only seasonal rainfall.

The large cities in the Deccan are Bengaluru, Mysuru, Tirupati, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik and Hyderabad. Other major cities include Hubli, Belagavi, Kalaburagi, Bidar, Hampi and Bellary in Karnataka; Aurangabad, Solapur, Osmanabad, Amravati, Kolhapur, Akola, Latur, Sangli, Jalgaon, Nanded, Dhule, Chandrapur, Yavatmal and Satara in Maharashtra; Hosur, Krishnagiri, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore and Ambur in Tamil Nadu; Amaravati, Visakhapatnam, Kurnool, Vijayawada, Guntur, Anantapur, Kadiri, Kadapa, Puttaparthi, Chittoor, Madanapalle, Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh; Warangal, Karimnagar, Ramagundam, Nizamabad, Suryapet, Siddipet, Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar in present-day Telangana; Jagdalpur, Kirandul, Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and Jeypore, Koraput, Bhawanipatna in Odisha in the Northeastern part of the Deccan Plateau.