UPPSC 2022 Prelims Q103: Dudhwa National Park is situated in which of the following

Q: What is the answer to UPPSC 2022 Prelims Q103?

A. Correct — A, Lakhimpur Kheri. Dudhwa National Park lies in Lakhimpur Kheri district, in the Terai belt along the Indo-Nepal border in the north of Uttar Pradesh. It began as a sanctuary in 1958 and was notified a national park in January 1977, largely through the long campaign of the conservationist Billy Arjan Singh, with a core of about 490 square kilometres and a buffer of roughly 190. It is the only national park in Uttar Pradesh, and it is best known for two mammals: the swamp deer or barasingha, of which it holds one of India's largest populations, and the greater one-horned rhinoceros, reintroduced there in 1984. The three wrong options are all real protected-area districts, which is what makes the question worth doing carefully.

UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 103 of 150

Verified against the official question paper. Answer as per the official UPPSC answer key.

Dudhwa National Park is situated in which of the following districts of Uttar Pradesh ?

(a)Lakhimpur Kheri
(b)Sitapur
(c)Bahraich
(d)Pilibhit

Answer

Why

Correct — A, Lakhimpur Kheri. Dudhwa National Park lies in Lakhimpur Kheri district, in the Terai belt along the Indo-Nepal border in the north of Uttar Pradesh. It began as a sanctuary in 1958 and was notified a national park in January 1977, largely through the long campaign of the conservationist Billy Arjan Singh, with a core of about 490 square kilometres and a buffer of roughly 190. It is the only national park in Uttar Pradesh, and it is best known for two mammals: the swamp deer or barasingha, of which it holds one of India's largest populations, and the greater one-horned rhinoceros, reintroduced there in 1984. The three wrong options are all real protected-area districts, which is what makes the question worth doing carefully.

Why the others are wrong

(b)Sitapur — Sitapur adjoins the Terai belt and lies immediately south of Lakhimpur Kheri, but it has no national park. It is in the list purely as a neighbouring district — the cheapest kind of distractor, and the one to eliminate first.
(c)Bahraich — The best trap in the set. Bahraich holds Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, which has been part of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve since 2000. So Bahraich is inside the tiger reserve — but the national park itself is not there. The question asks for the park, not the reserve, and the two have different boundaries.
(d)Pilibhit — Pilibhit has its own protected area, the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, notified in 2014 — a separate reserve in the same Terai landscape, not part of Dudhwa. Having a tiger reserve is not the same as having the national park.

Concept

A national park and a tiger reserve are different legal creatures, and this question turns on the difference. A national park is notified under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, with fixed boundaries and no grazing or private rights inside. A tiger reserve is constituted under Project Tiger and can stitch together several existing protected areas — one or more national parks plus wildlife sanctuaries — into a single core-and-buffer management unit spread across districts. Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, constituted in 1987-88, is exactly such a composite: Dudhwa National Park and Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary at the start, with Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary added in 2000.

The trap is Bahraich, and it works on a candidate who has learnt 'Dudhwa Tiger Reserve' rather than 'Dudhwa National Park'. Katarniaghat, in Bahraich, is genuinely part of the tiger reserve, so a student who remembers the reserve's spread will find Bahraich defensible. The discipline is to read which unit the question names. The same discipline eliminates Pilibhit: it is a tiger reserve of its own in the same Terai belt, not a piece of Dudhwa. Sitapur is filler. The one thing to fix in memory is the pairing Dudhwa — Lakhimpur Kheri, the only district in Uttar Pradesh that contains a national park.

Key facts

Dudhwa National Park is in Lakhimpur Kheri district, Uttar Pradesh, in the Terai on the Indo-Nepal border
Declared a sanctuary in 1958 and notified a national park in January 1977; core about 490 sq km with a roughly 190 sq km buffer
It is the only national park in Uttar Pradesh, which also has about twenty-five wildlife sanctuaries
Dudhwa Tiger Reserve was constituted in 1987-88 from Dudhwa National Park and Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary; Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, in Bahraich, was added in 2000
Dudhwa is known for the swamp deer (barasingha) and for the greater one-horned rhinoceros, reintroduced there in 1984
Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, notified in 2014, is a separate reserve in the same Terai landscape

An open expanse of tall Terai grassland in Dudhwa National Park running to a line of sal forest on the horizon — Dudhwa National Park, in Lakhimpur Kheri district on Uttar Pradesh's Terai border with Nepal — the state's only national park, notified in January 1977 and known for swamp deer and the one-horned rhinoceros reintroduced in 1984.Image: Rajesh.chansausi · Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Study next

Protected areas of Uttar Pradesh — Dudhwa National Park, Katarniaghat, Kishanpur and Chandraprabha sanctuaries, and the National Chambal SanctuaryTiger reserves of Uttar Pradesh — Dudhwa, Pilibhit, Amangarh and Ranipur — and how Project Tiger's core-and-buffer model worksCategories under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 — national park, wildlife sanctuary, conservation reserve, community reserveThe Terai-Bhabar belt — its geology, water table, grasslands and why it forms a continuous tiger landscape with NepalFlagship species of the Terai — swamp deer, greater one-horned rhinoceros, hispid hare and Bengal florican

Common traps

Answering with a district that belongs to the tiger reserve rather than to the national park — Bahraich holds Katarniaghat, which is inside Dudhwa Tiger Reserve but outside the park
Treating Pilibhit as part of Dudhwa; it is a separate tiger reserve notified in 2014
Mixing up Dudhwa's swamp deer with the hard-ground subspecies of barasingha, which survives in Kanha, not in the Terai

UPPSC asks Uttar Pradesh protected areas as bare location questions — which district holds which park or sanctuary — and occasionally as a match-the-list of sanctuary against district. UPSC almost never asks the district; it asks which species a protected area is known for, which river runs through it, or which pairs of protected area and state are correctly matched.

Related PYQs

UPSC_2006_GS1_Q12006Open & attempt →

Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer using the code given below the lists: List – I (National Park / Wildlife Sanctuary) A. Chandra Prabha B. Karera C. Jaisamand D. Nahargarh List – II (Nearby Town) 1. Jaipur 2. Jhansi 3. Agra 4. Varanasi 5. Udaipur Code: A B C D

(a) 4 1 5 2
(b) 5 2 1 3
(c) 4 3 1 2
(d) 5 1 3 2

Answer(c) 4 3 1 2

The same underlying skill — placing a protected area on the map — asked as a four-way match. Its first item is Chandra Prabha in Uttar Pradesh, the other UP sanctuary the commissions keep returning to.

UPSC_2020_GS1_Q752020Open & attempt →

Which one of the following protected areas is well-known for the conservation of a sub-species of the Indian swamp deer (Barasingha) that thrives well on hard ground and is exclusively graminivorous 2

(a) Kanha National Park
(b) Manas National Park
(c) Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary
(d) Tal Chhapar Wildlife Sanctuary

Answer(a) Kanha National Park

Dudhwa's signature species, asked from the other end. Dudhwa holds the wetland swamp deer of the Terai; the hard-ground subspecies of the same animal survives only in Kanha — a distinction UPSC has tested and UPPSC has not.

UPPSC_2023_PRE_PaperI_Q1202023Open & attempt →

Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary is situated in which district of Uttar Pradesh?

(a) Chandauli
(b) Baharaich
(c) Sonbhadra
(d) Lakhimpur Khiri

Answer(a) Chandauli

The same question, one year later, with the answers reshuffled — and note that Lakhimpur Kheri and Bahraich both reappear as options there. UPPSC recycles this small pool of protected-area districts, so learning all of them together pays twice.

UPPSC_2025_PRE_PaperI_Q92025Open & attempt →

Match List - I with List - II and select the correct answer from the code given below the lists. List - I (National Park / Wildlife Sanctuary) A. Dachingam B. Keoladeo C. Kanha D. Periyar List - II (State / Union Territory) 1. Madhya Pradesh 2. Rajasthan 3. Kerala 4. Jammu and Kashmir

(a) A-4, B-2, C-3, D-1
(b) A-2, B-4, C-3, D-1
(c) A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3
(d) A-4, B-2, C-1, D-3

Answer(d) A-4, B-2, C-1, D-3

The national-level version of the same recall: park matched to its state rather than to its district. Prepare the national list and the Uttar Pradesh list in one sitting, because UPPSC draws from both.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Dudhwa Tiger Reserve of Uttar Pradesh comprises Dudhwa National Park together with which of the following?
- (a)Kishanpur and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuaries
- (b)Chandraprabha and Ranipur Wildlife Sanctuaries
- (c)The National Chambal Sanctuary
- (d)Pilibhit Tiger Reserve
Answer(a) Kishanpur and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuaries — Dudhwa Tiger Reserve was constituted in 1987-88 from Dudhwa National Park and Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary, with Katarniaghat, in Bahraich, added in 2000.
practice — not a real PYQ
The greater one-horned rhinoceros was reintroduced in Dudhwa National Park in which year?
- (a)1977
- (b)1984
- (c)1996
- (d)2005
Answer(b) 1984 — rhinos were brought back to Dudhwa in 1984, seven years after the park was notified in January 1977, restoring a species that had been lost from the Uttar Pradesh Terai.