UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 89 of 149

Correct — D, 8° 4' N to 37° 6' N.

The stem asks about the mainland, and the figures Indian geography texts give for that landmass are 8° 4' N to 37° 6' N. The southern end sits at the Kanyakumari tip in Tamil Nadu; the northern end lies in the far north of Ladakh.

That is a span of about 29 degrees of latitude, roughly 3,214 km from tip to tip. The Tropic of Cancer at 23° 30' N falls not far from the middle of it, which is why the country reads as half tropical and half sub-tropical.

The idea to carry away is the pairing: the mainland starts at 8° 4' N, while Indian territory as a whole reaches further south to about 6° 45' N in the Nicobar group. Which figure you quote depends on which of the two the question names.

• (a)
  6° 45' N to 37° 6' N — The northern figure here is the right one, so this option turns entirely on the southern end. 6° 45' N is Indira Point in the Great Nicobar group, the southernmost point of Indian territory — not of the landmass the stem asks about.

  So this is the answer to the latitudinal extent of India including its island territories, a span of about 30 degrees rather than 29. Read the word 'mainland' in the stem and this option separates itself from the key.

• (b)
  6° 4' N to 36° 7' N — Both ends are off. The southern figure borrows the island degree (6°) and attaches the mainland's minutes (4'), producing a latitude that belongs to neither limit.

  The northern figure, 36° 7' N, is the same two digits as 37° 6' written the other way round — nearly a full degree, close to 110 km, south of the quoted northern limit. Compare minutes as well as degrees and this option fails on both readings.

• (c)
  8° 45' N to 36° 12' N — The degree values look plausible, which is the whole difficulty; the minutes are what break it. 8° 45' N lies roughly 75 km north of the actual southern tip, since one minute of latitude is about 1.85 km.

  The 45' is the minute value lifted from Indira Point's 6° 45' N and pinned to the mainland's degree. The northern figure, 36° 12' N, falls short of the 37° 6' N that Indian texts quote.

A country's latitudinal extent is the pair of parallels between which it lies, written in degrees and minutes, a minute being a sixtieth of a degree.

For India the answer depends on what is being measured: the continuous landmass, or that landmass together with the island territories.

The mainland figure is 8° 4' N to 37° 6' N. Counting the islands pushes the southern limit down to about 6° 45' N at Indira Point, in the Great Nicobar group.

• The Indian mainland extends from about 8° 4' N to 37° 6' N, a span of roughly 29 degrees of latitude.
• Including the island territories, India's southernmost point is Indira Point in the Great Nicobar group, at about 6° 45' N.
• The mainland's longitudinal extent runs from about 68° 7' E to 97° 25' E.
• The north–south extent of the mainland is about 3,214 km; the east–west extent is about 2,933 km.
• The Tropic of Cancer, at 23° 30' N, crosses India and passes near the middle of its latitudinal span.
• India's area is about 3.28 million sq km, roughly 2.4 per cent of the world's land area.
• One minute of latitude is about 1.85 km, so a 40-minute difference in a figure shifts a point by roughly 75 km.
• Indian Standard Time is fixed on the 82° 30' E meridian, a longitude near the middle of the east–west spread.

• 6° 45' N is the southern limit of Indian territory including the Nicobar Islands; using it for a stem that says 'mainland' answers a different question.
• 37° 6' N and 36° 7' N reuse the digits 6 and 7 with the degree and minute slots swapped, so read which number sits before the ° sign — 37 is the mainland's northern limit, 36 is not.
• Minutes are sixtieths of a degree, not tenths: 45' is three-quarters of a degree, so 8° 45' N sits 41' — about 76 km — north of 8° 4' N, and is not a rounding of it.
• 8° 4' N and 68° 7' E both look like small numbers under time pressure; one is the southern latitude of the mainland, the other its western longitude.
• A 40-minute error in a latitude figure is roughly 75 km on the ground, so the minute value is doing real geographical work, not decoration.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Indira Point, the southernmost point of Indian territory, lies at approximately which latitude?

  • (a)6° 45' N
  • (b)8° 4' N
  • (c)23° 30' N
  • (d)37° 6' N
  Answera — Indira Point, in the Great Nicobar group, lies at about 6° 45' N, further south than any part of the landmass.

  Option (b), 8° 4' N, is the southern limit of the mainland at the Kanyakumari tip. Option (c), 23° 30' N, is the Tropic of Cancer. Option (d), 37° 6' N, is the northern limit of the mainland, at the opposite end of the country.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The latitudinal extent of the Indian mainland, from 8° 4' N to 37° 6' N, spans approximately how many degrees of latitude?

  • (a)15 degrees
  • (b)23 degrees
  • (c)29 degrees
  • (d)37 degrees
  Answerc — subtracting 8° 4' from 37° 6' gives 29° 2', so about 29 degrees.

  Option (b), 23 degrees, echoes the Tropic of Cancer's 23° 30' N, which is a single parallel and not a span.

  Option (d), 37 degrees, mistakes the northern limit itself for the extent, as if the mainland began at the equator. Option (a) is far too small for a country running about 3,214 km north to south.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The north–south extent of the Indian mainland is approximately

  • (a)2,933 km
  • (b)3,214 km
  • (c)6,100 km
  • (d)7,517 km
  Answerb — the mainland measures about 3,214 km from its southern tip to its northern limit.

  Option (a), 2,933 km, is the east–west extent of the mainland, shorter in kilometres even though the spread in degrees is similar, because meridians converge away from the equator.

  Option (c) is close to the length of the mainland coastline, and option (d) is close to the total coastline once the island territories are counted. Both are shoreline measurements, not a tip-to-tip distance.