UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 76 of 150

Correct — A, 2, 4, 3, 1, that is Pontic → Zagros → Hindu Kush → Karakoram. Walk east along the Alpine–Himalayan mountain belt from Anatolia and the order falls out. The PONTIC Mountains are the westernmost: they run for about a thousand kilometres along the southern shore of the Black Sea in northern Turkey, reaching west almost to the Sea of Marmara and north-east into Georgia, so their span is roughly 30° to 42° East. Next comes the ZAGROS, which begins in north-western Iran, takes in south-eastern Turkey and north-eastern Iraq, and runs 1,600 kilometres south-east along Iran's western flank to the Strait of Hormuz; the range as a whole is centred near 47° East. Further east again is the HINDU KUSH, an 800-kilometre chain reaching from central and eastern Afghanistan into north-western Pakistan and the far south-east of Tajikistan, centred at about 71° East. Easternmost is the KARAKORAM, which straddles Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan, Ladakh in India and Xinjiang in China; K2, its summit and the second-highest mountain on Earth at 8,611 metres, stands near 76°30′ East. Pontic, Zagros, Hindu Kush, Karakoram is therefore 2, 4, 3, 1 — option (a). A useful sanity check on the two ends: Turkey is the western anchor of the whole arc and India–Pakistan–China the eastern one, and the Hindu Kush's eastern end physically merges into the Karakoram, so those two must be adjacent and in that order.

• (b)2, 3, 4, 1 — Starts correctly with the Pontic but then swaps the Zagros and the Hindu Kush. That would put the Hindu Kush, which lies in Afghanistan and Pakistan at about 71° East, to the WEST of the Zagros, which lies in Iran and Iraq at about 47° East — a jump of nearly twenty-five degrees of longitude in the wrong direction. The mistake usually comes from grouping the Zagros with 'the Middle East' and the Hindu Kush with 'Central Asia' without remembering that Iran sits between Iraq and Afghanistan.
• (c)4, 2, 3, 1 — Gets the eastern half right but opens with the Zagros instead of the Pontic. Both ranges reach into Turkey, which is what makes this the most tempting wrong answer, but they occupy different corners of it: the Pontic runs along the northern, Black Sea coast and extends west almost to the Sea of Marmara, while the Zagros only clips the south-eastern corner of Turkey before running down Iran's western border. The Pontic's western end is therefore several hundred kilometres west of anything in the Zagros.
• (d)4, 1, 2, 3 — Scrambled beyond repair. It places the Karakoram — the easternmost range in the set, on the Pakistan–India–China frontier — in second position, ahead of both the Pontic in Turkey and the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. Only the Zagros ends up anywhere defensible, and even that is in the wrong slot.

All four ranges belong to one structure: the Alpine–Himalayan orogenic belt, the near-continuous chain of young fold mountains raised where the African, Arabian and Indian plates drove north into Eurasia and closed the Tethys Sea. Traced from west to east the belt runs Atlas → Pyrenees and Alps → Carpathians and Caucasus → Pontic and Taurus in Anatolia → Zagros and Elburz in Iran → Hindu Kush and Pamir → Karakoram → Himalaya. That single thread is why 'arrange these ranges from west to east' is answerable without memorising longitudes: you are being asked to recite one chain, and each range's country is the clue to its position on it.

The reasoning shortcut is to convert mountains into countries and countries into a west-to-east line. Turkey is west of Iran, Iran is west of Afghanistan, and Afghanistan is west of the Pakistan–India–China junction. Pontic sits in Turkey, Zagros mainly in Iran, Hindu Kush in Afghanistan and Karakoram at the eastern junction, so the order writes itself. The trap the examiner has set is that two of the four ranges — Pontic and Zagros — both touch Turkey, which invites a candidate to reverse them. Settle it by remembering which coast each faces: the Pontic looks north over the Black Sea across the whole width of northern Anatolia, while the Zagros barely reaches Turkey's south-eastern corner before running away into Iran. A second, structural check is available at the far end: geographers describe the eastern extremity of the Hindu Kush as merging with the Karakoram, so those two are neighbours and the Hindu Kush must be the western of the pair.

• Pontic Mountains — northern Turkey, extending into Georgia; about 1,000 km parallel to the southern shore of the Black Sea; highest peak Kaçkar Dağı, 3,937 m. Their western end reaches towards the Sea of Marmara.
• Zagros Mountains — western Iran with extensions into north-eastern Iraq and south-eastern Turkey; about 1,600 km running north-west to south-east, ending at the Strait of Hormuz; highest peak Mount Dena, 4,409 m; the range is centred near 47° East.
• Hindu Kush — about 800 km from central and eastern Afghanistan into north-western Pakistan and far south-eastern Tajikistan, centred near 35° N, 71° E; highest peak Tirich Mir, 7,708 m, in Chitral, Pakistan. It divides the Amu Darya basin to the north from the Indus basin to the south, and its eastern end merges with the Karakoram.
• Karakoram — shared by Gilgit-Baltistan (Pakistan), Ladakh (India) and Xinjiang (China); its summit K2 at 8,611 m is the second-highest mountain on Earth, near 76°30′ East. The range carries some of the longest glaciers outside the polar regions, including the Siachen, Biafo and Baltoro.
• All four are young fold mountains of the Alpine–Himalayan (Tethyan) system, raised by the northward collision of the Arabian and Indian plates with Eurasia — which is why they form one continuous west-to-east arc.

• Assuming Iran lies east of Afghanistan. The country order across the belt is Turkey → Iran → Afghanistan → Pakistan, and it is that order which fixes Pontic → Zagros → Hindu Kush → Karakoram.
• Confusing the Pontic Mountains with the Taurus. Both are in Turkey, but the Pontic runs along the northern Black Sea coast while the Taurus runs along the southern Mediterranean coast.
• Treating the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram as interchangeable. They meet, but the Hindu Kush is the Afghan range with Tirich Mir at 7,708 m, while the Karakoram is the Pakistan–India–China range with K2 at 8,611 m.

UPPSC likes ordering questions on world physical features — west to east, north to south, or by size — and pairs them with match-lists of mountain against country; UPSC prefers to give a mountain range with a region and a mountain type and ask how many of the pairings hold.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Tirich Mir, the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, lies in which country?

  • (a)Afghanistan
  • (b)Pakistan
  • (c)Tajikistan
  • (d)China

  Answer(b) Pakistan — Tirich Mir, 7,708 m, stands in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Hindu Kush as a range runs mainly through Afghanistan, which is why this is a frequently missed detail.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following mountain ranges runs along Iran's western border and ends near the Strait of Hormuz?

  • (a)Elburz
  • (b)Taurus
  • (c)Zagros
  • (d)Pontic

  Answer(c) Zagros — it runs about 1,600 km from north-western Iran south-east to the Strait of Hormuz, with Mount Dena (4,409 m) as its highest point. The Elburz runs along Iran's northern edge beside the Caspian, while the Taurus and Pontic are the southern and northern ranges of Turkey respectively.