Which State has the longest boundary with Madhya Pradesh ?

Question

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Correct — A, Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is the second largest Indian State by area at 308,252 square kilometres and it is landlocked, so its whole perimeter is shared with other States — five of them, and only five: Rajasthan to the north-west, Uttar Pradesh to the north-east, Chhattisgarh to the east, Maharashtra to the south and Gujarat to the west. Of those, the Uttar Pradesh frontier is the longest and the Gujarat frontier the shortest — the pair of facts usually taught together for this State. The reason the Uttar Pradesh boundary wins is visible on any political map: Uttar Pradesh does not merely touch Madhya Pradesh at a corner, it wraps around the entire northern and north-eastern edge of the State. The line begins in the north-west at Morena and Bhind, where the Chambal separates the two, runs east through the whole Bundelkhand belt past Datia, Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur and Panna, and continues to Rewa, Satna, Sidhi and Singrauli in the east — an almost unbroken frontier several hundred kilometres wide in longitude, and a highly convoluted one, because for long stretches it follows the meanders of the Chambal, the Ken and the Son rather than a surveyed straight line. One of the two independent derivations behind this card measured it rather than recalled it, summing the boundary segments the two States' administrative outlines actually share, and found the Uttar Pradesh frontier roughly forty per cent longer than the Rajasthan one, with Maharashtra a clear third, Chhattisgarh fourth and Gujarat much the shortest. The ranking, not the absolute figure, is what a question like this tests, and Uttar Pradesh leads it comfortably.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The genuine runner-up, and the reason this question is not trivial. The Rajasthan boundary runs across the whole north-west of Madhya Pradesh, from the Gujarat corner through the Malwa plateau to the Chambal near Morena, and it is long — but it is confined to one flank, whereas Uttar Pradesh occupies the entire north and north-east. Measured, it comes out well short of the Uttar Pradesh figure.  (c) It does not touch Madhya Pradesh at all, and the option is a leftover from an older map. Undivided Madhya Pradesh DID border Andhra Pradesh, through the Bastar region in its far south-east. The Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act of November 2000 carved that whole region out as Chhattisgarh, and with it went the Andhra frontier. Since then Madhya Pradesh's south-eastern neighbour has been Chhattisgarh.  (d) A real neighbour and a substantial one, running along the Satpura belt across the whole south of the State from Burhanpur and Khandwa through Betul and Chhindwara to Balaghat. But it is a southern flank rather than a wrap-around, it is shorter than both the Uttar Pradesh and the Rajasthan boundaries on measurement, and much of it follows the Satpura crest rather than a winding river.

Concept: Madhya Pradesh is the classic 'heart of India' State — landlocked, central, and bounded entirely by other States. It was the largest State in India by area until November 2000, when the Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act split off its south-eastern districts as Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan took first place. The State was itself assembled in 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act out of four units: the old Madhya Bharat with its capital at Gwalior, Vindhya Pradesh, Bhopal State and the Hindi-speaking part of the Central Provinces and Berar, with the Marathi-speaking Vidarbha region including Nagpur going to Bombay State. Its physical structure is simple to hold: the Vindhya range across the middle, the Satpura range to its south, and the Narmada running west between them through a rift valley — the longest river in the State and the one that gives the trough its shape. The Tapti runs parallel to the south, also in a rift valley.

State PCS 2025 Q11 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q11 — Geography PYQ with Answer