The Nilgiri Hills are located between which of these two ranges ?

Question

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Correct — C, the Sahyadris (Western Ghats) and the Eastern Ghats. The Nilgiris are the knot where the two Ghat systems converge, at the meeting point of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The Western Ghats run down the west coast and the Eastern Ghats run in broken hill blocks down the east; the Nilgiri massif is the high junction where the two lines come together, which is why the range rises so much higher than either arm nearby — Doddabetta, its highest point, reaches about 2,637 m.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Both lie in northern/north-western India — the Himalaya along the northern frontier and the Aravalli through Rajasthan. The Nilgiris are in the far south of the peninsula, more than a thousand kilometres away.  (b) The Vindhya and Satpura ranges flank the Narmada valley in central India (largely Madhya Pradesh). That is the central highland belt, not the southern Ghat junction.  (d) A central-India range paired with a north-western one. Neither touches the Nilgiris, which sit at the southern end of the peninsular plateau.

Concept: Peninsular India is bounded by two hill systems: the Western Ghats (Sahyadri), a continuous, steep fault scarp along the west coast, and the Eastern Ghats, a discontinuous, more eroded chain along the east that is repeatedly cut by rivers like the Godavari and Krishna. The two converge in the south at the Nilgiri Hills — the 'blue mountains' — which form a high plateau block above 2,000 m. South of the Nilgiris the chain is interrupted by the Palghat (Palakkad) Gap, roughly 30 km wide, beyond which it continues as the Anaimalai and Cardamom Hills.

State PCS 2025 Q98 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q98 — Geography PYQ with Answer