Kalsubai is the highest mountain peak in Maharashtra located in which of the following mountain ranges ?

Question

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Correct — option (1), Sahyadri, is where Kalsubai actually stands. Kalsubai, at about 1,646 metres (roughly 5,400 feet), is the highest peak anywhere in Maharashtra, and it belongs to the Sahyadri range — the Maharashtra stretch of the Western Ghats that runs parallel to the Konkan coast. The peak sits in Akole taluka of Ahmednagar (recently renamed Ahilyanagar) district, near the well-known trekking and reservoir town of Bhandardara, and it carries a small temple to the goddess Kalsubai at its summit, which is why locals sometimes call it the 'Everest of Maharashtra.' The Sahyadri is the parent range of the state's high-altitude tourism belt — it is the same range that carries Mahabaleshwar, Harishchandragad, and most of Maharashtra's celebrated hill forts and trekking peaks — so a candidate who has internalised 'Sahyadri = Western Ghats = Maharashtra's tallest terrain' has the fastest route to this answer. The three wrong options name real Maharashtra ranges, but none of them is where Kalsubai is found: they are all lower, drier, more interior ranges that branch eastward off the Sahyadri rather than the Sahyadri itself.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Not Kalsubai's range — the Shambhu-Mahadeva range does exist, but it branches off the Sahyadri near Mahabaleshwar and runs east through Satara and Sangli districts towards the Maharashtra-Karnataka border, dividing the upper Bhima and Krishna river systems. It is a real spur of the Western Ghats system, which is exactly why it is a tempting distractor, but Kalsubai stands well to the north of this range, in the core Sahyadri line through Ahmednagar district, not on this eastern offshoot.  (c) Not Kalsubai's range — the Satpuda is an entirely different hill system that runs along Maharashtra's northern border with Madhya Pradesh, forming the watershed for the Tapi river and containing the Melghat forests. It has no connection to the Sahyadri chain running down the western edge of the state, and its highest points (in the Chikhaldara-Gavilgad area) are unrelated to Kalsubai, which lies far to the south-west of the Satpuda in a completely different range.  (d) Not Kalsubai's range — the Balaghat range branches south-eastward off the Western Ghats at the Harishchandra range and runs at comparatively low elevation through Ahmednagar, Beed, Latur, Osmanabad and Solapur districts, separating the Godavari basin to its north from the Bhima basin to its south. It shares a district (Ahmednagar) with Kalsubai, which is exactly the kind of geographic proximity a question like this exploits, but Kalsubai itself rises in the core Sahyadri line, not on this lower, drier interior spur.

Concept: Maharashtra's hill geography is essentially one main range — the Sahyadri, the state's stretch of the Western Ghats, running roughly north-south parallel to the Konkan coast — with several lower, drier ranges (Shambhu-Mahadeo, Balaghat, Ajanta, Satmala, Harishchandra) branching eastward off it into the Deccan plateau, plus the wholly separate Satpuda system along the state's northern border. Kalsubai, Maharashtra's highest peak at about 1,646 m, sits on the core Sahyadri line in Ahmednagar district near Bhandardara, alongside other well-known Sahyadri peaks and forts such as Mahabaleshwar, Harishchandragad and Salher.

State PCS 2025 Q29 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q29 — Geography PYQ with Answer