Indore city in Madhya Pradesh is situated in which one of the following regions?

Correct — C, Malwa Plateau. Indore stands at about 550 metres on the Malwa Plateau, the basalt upland that occupies western Madhya Pradesh north of the Vindhyan scarp. The plateau is built on Deccan trap lava, carries deep black cotton soil, and slopes gently northward, so its streams — the Chambal, the Shipra, the Kali Sindh, the Parbati — run away from the Narmada and towards the Yamuna. Indore itself sits on the Khan and the Saraswati, two small feeders of that northward drainage, and shares the region with Ujjain, Dewas, Dhar, Mandsaur, Ratlam and Mandu. The four options are all genuine regions of Madhya Pradesh, which is what makes the question a fair one: the state is conventionally described through its cultural-cum-physical regions rather than its districts, and Malwa is the western one.

• (a)Bundelkhand — Lies at the other end of the state, in the north-east, straddling the Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh border — Sagar, Damoh, Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh and Datia on one side, Jhansi and Banda on the other. Khajuraho is its landmark. It is several hundred kilometres from Indore.
• (b)Mahakoshal — The upper Narmada country of eastern Madhya Pradesh, centred on Jabalpur and reaching into the Satpura and Maikal hills. Wrong side of the state, and a different drainage basin.
• (d)Nimar Region — The strongest wrong option, because Nimar adjoins Malwa. It is the Narmada trough south of the Vindhyan scarp — Khandwa, Khargone, Barwani and Burhanpur — and it lies below the plateau, not on it. Indore is on the upland above that scarp, which is why the two are counted as separate regions.

Madhya Pradesh is usually divided into cultural regions that follow its physiography. Malwa is the lava plateau of the west, between the Vindhyan scarp on the south and the Chambal ravines on the north. Nimar is the Narmada valley below that scarp. Mahakoshal is the upper Narmada and Satpura country around Jabalpur. Bundelkhand is the granite and sandstone country of the north-east, and Baghelkhand lies east of it. Indore, the state's largest city and its commercial centre, belongs to Malwa.

The way to hold these regions in place is through the physical features that separate them. The Vindhyan range and its scarp form the southern edge of Malwa and the northern wall of the Narmada trough, so Malwa and Nimar are an upland and the valley beneath it, and a city is in one or the other according to which side of that scarp it stands. Indore is on top. Ujjain, the classical city of Avanti on the Shipra and one of the Kumbh sites, is on the same plateau and about fifty kilometres away, which is a useful anchor. The Malwa Plateau also explains why the region reads as a single unit in history: black soil, a temperate upland climate and the northward routes to the Ganga plain made it worth fighting over from the Paramaras through the Malwa Sultanate to the Marathas, and Indore itself grew as the Holkar capital in the eighteenth century.

• Indore is the largest city of Madhya Pradesh and its commercial centre; Bhopal is the state capital.
• The Malwa Plateau is built on Deccan trap basalt, carries black soil, and slopes north so that the Chambal and Shipra drain it towards the Yamuna.
• The Vindhyan scarp forms Malwa's southern edge; beyond and below it lies the Narmada trough, which is the Nimar region.
• Ujjain, Dewas, Dhar, Mandsaur, Ratlam and Mandu are the other well-known places of Malwa.
• Indore has repeatedly been ranked India's cleanest city in the Union government's Swachh Survekshan survey, first taking the title in 2017.

• Putting Indore in Nimar because the two regions adjoin. The Vindhyan scarp separates the plateau above from the valley below.
• Assuming the state capital is the largest city. Bhopal is the capital; Indore is the larger and the commercial centre.
• Confusing Bundelkhand with Baghelkhand. Khajuraho belongs to the first, Rewa and Satna to the second.

As a place-to-region pairing, either singly as here or as a match-the-list item that mixes cities and regions across several states.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Malwa Plateau is drained mainly by which one of the following rivers?

  • (a)Narmada
  • (b)Tapi
  • (c)Chambal
  • (d)Wainganga

  Answer(c) Chambal — the plateau slopes northward, so its streams run away from the Narmada and towards the Yamuna through the Chambal and the Kali Sindh.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Nimar region of Madhya Pradesh corresponds to the valley of which river?

  • (a)Betwa
  • (b)Narmada
  • (c)Son
  • (d)Ken

  Answer(b) Narmada — Nimar is the trough south of the Vindhyan scarp, containing Khandwa, Khargone, Barwani and Burhanpur.