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Essay on Himalaya

Students are often asked to write an essay on Himalaya in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Himalaya

Introduction.

The Himalayas, a majestic range of mountains, stretch across five countries in Asia. They are not just mountains, but a world full of diverse flora and fauna.

Geographical Spread

Stretching over 2,400 kilometers, the Himalayas cover India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, and Pakistan. They are home to the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest.

Flora and Fauna

The Himalayas are rich in biodiversity. They shelter snow leopards, Himalayan tahr, and red pandas. The region also boasts numerous plant species.

Cultural Significance

The Himalayas hold great cultural significance. Many religions like Hinduism and Buddhism consider them sacred.

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250 Words Essay on Himalaya

The Himalayas, a Sanskrit term meaning ‘abode of snow’, is a majestic mountain range in Asia. It stretches over five countries: India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Pakistan. This range, spanning about 2,400 kilometers, is a marvel of nature that is both awe-inspiring and daunting.

Geological Significance

Formed approximately 50 million years ago as a result of tectonic plate movements, the Himalayas are still growing taller. The collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates resulted in this magnificent range, making it a significant study area for geologists and environmental scientists.

Biodiversity and Ecosystem

The Himalayas are a treasure trove of biodiversity. They are home to several unique species of flora and fauna, some of which are found nowhere else in the world. The region’s diverse ecosystems, ranging from subtropical forests to icy peaks, provide habitats for species such as the snow leopard and red panda.

Cultural and Spiritual Significance

The Himalayas hold immense cultural and spiritual significance. They are revered in several religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. Many pilgrims undertake arduous journeys to visit sacred sites nestled in these mountains, reflecting the deep-rooted spiritual significance of the Himalayas.

Climate Change Impact

In conclusion, the Himalayas are more than just a mountain range. They are a symbol of nature’s grandeur, a hotspot of biodiversity, a spiritual sanctuary, and a critical barometer of global climate change.

500 Words Essay on Himalaya

The majesty of the himalayas.

The Himalayas, a Sanskrit term translating to ‘abode of the snow’, are a majestic mountain range that stretches across five countries: India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Pakistan. They’re not merely a geographical feature but a symbol of nature’s grandeur and resilience, having a profound impact on the climate, biodiversity, and culture of the region.

Formation and Geographical Significance

The geographical significance of the Himalayas is immense. They act as a natural barrier, influencing the climate of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. The Himalayas prevent the cold Central Asian winds from reaching South Asia, resulting in a warm and temperate climate ideal for agriculture. Conversely, they block the monsoon winds, causing heavy rainfall in the Indian subcontinent.

The Himalayas are a biodiversity hotspot, home to a myriad of species, many of which are endemic. They comprise a range of ecosystems, from subtropical forests at the foothills to alpine meadows and tundra regions at higher altitudes. The region is home to iconic species such as the snow leopard, Bengal tiger, and red panda, and boasts of over 10,000 plant species, a third of which are endemic.

Climate Change and the Himalayas

However, the Himalayas are facing the brunt of climate change. The glaciers are receding at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply of millions who depend on the rivers originating from these glaciers. The loss of biodiversity due to habitat loss and human encroachment is another major concern. It’s imperative to adopt sustainable practices and policies to conserve this unique and vital ecosystem.

The Himalayas, with their breathtaking beauty and ecological richness, are a testament to nature’s grandeur. They’re a symbol of endurance and adaptability, having stood the test of time and weathered numerous climatic cycles. As we face the challenges of climate change and environmental degradation, the Himalayas stand as a stark reminder of what we stand to lose if we don’t act responsibly. Their conservation is not just an environmental imperative but a moral one, for they are a shared heritage of humankind.

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The Himalayas: Formation, Divisions, Ranges & Significance

The Himalayas

Seated between the Indo-Gangetic Plains and the high Tibetan Plateau, the Himalayas constitute one of the most majestic mountain ranges in the world. Much more than just a geographical entity, the Himalayas gain significance for their environmental, cultural, and geopolitical implications. This article of NEXT IAS aims to study in detail the Himalayas, including their formation, divisions, important ranges, significance, and other related aspects.

About the Himalayas

The Himalayas are young fold mountains formed by the convergence of two tectonic plates. They constitute one of the 5 physiographic divisions of India. Along with acting as a grand barrier guarding India’s frontiers, they also act as a dividing range between the Tibetan Plateau in the north and India in the south.

the Himalayas

Formation of Himalayas

The Himalayas were formed several million years ago as a result of the convergence of the Indo-Australian Tectonic Plate with the Eurasian (Asian) Tectonic Plate . The series of events that led to their genesis and evolution are listed chronologically below:

Formation of Himalayas

  • Existence of Pangea and Panthalassa : Around 250 million years ago, there existed a supercontinent called Pangea (a giant formation of land under which all the continents of the world were attached together as a monolithic structure). This Pangea was surrounded by a massive water body called Panthalassa .
  • It consisted of landmasses that contained present-day North America, Europe, and Asia.
  • It consisted of present-day South America, Africa, South India, Australia, and Antarctica.
  • Formation of Tethys Sea : Due to the breaking down of Pangea, a long narrow sea was created between Angaraland and Gondwanaland, occupying the area where the Himalayas stand today. This sea was known as the Tethys Sea.
  • Deposition of Sediments : During the course of time, huge amounts of sediments were deposited in the bed of the Tethys Sea by the rivers flowing from Angaraland as well as Gondwanaland.
  • Breaking Down of Gondwanaland and Angaraland : The Gondwanaland and Angaraland were further broken down into different smaller landmasses. The Indo-Australian Plate (comprising present-day Australia and the Indian Sub-continent) emanated from the Gondwanaland and the Eurasian Plate (containing present-day Europe and Northern Asia) emanated from the Angaraland.
  • Convergence of Indo-Australian and Eurasian Plates : The convectional currents generated in the Mantle of the Earth made the Indo-Australian Plate drift northwards towards the Eurasian Plate. This drift continued for millions of years, leading to the convergence of the two plates across the Tethys Sea.
  • Formation of Folds : As the two plates continued to approach each other, the area of the Tethys Sea began to shrink and the sediments in its seabed were slowly pushed upwards , leading to the formation of folds.
  • It is to be noted that the convergence of the two tectonic plates continues to date, leading to the rising of the Himalayas by about 5 mm per year even now.

Longitudinal Division of Himalayas

On the basis of the latitudinal extent, the Himalayas can be divided into three divisions :

  • Trans-Himalayas.
  • The Himalayan Mountain Ranges.
  • The Eastern Hills or Purvanchal.

Longitudinal Division of Himalayas

The Trans-Himalayas

  • It is the name denoted to the Himalayan Ranges which are north of the Great Himalayan Range.
  • They stretch in an east-west direction for a distance of about 1,000 km.
  • Their average elevation is approximately 3000 meters above mean sea level.
  • The prominent ranges that comprise the Trans-Himalayas include – The Karakoram Range , the Ladakh Range , and the Zaskar Range .

Karakoram Range

  • The Karakoram Range is the northernmost range of the Trans-Himalayan in India.
  • It forms India’s boundary with Afghanistan and China .
  • The average width of this range is 110-130 km.
  • It is approximately 8611m high and is the second-highest peak in the world .
  • Siachen Glacier and Remo Glacier are some of the prominent glaciers lying in this range.

Ladakh Range

  • It is considered the southeastern extension of the Karakoram Range.
  • From the mouth of the Shyok River in north Kashmir, it extends in the southeast direction towards the Indo-Tibetan borders.
  • The Deosai Mountains , situated towards the southwest of the Indus River in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), are occasionally considered part of the Ladakh range.
  • The Kailash Range in western Tibet is also considered a westward extension of the Ladakh Range .

Zaskar Range

  • It runs more or less parallel to the Great Himalayan Range.
  • This range extends in the southeast direction from the Suru River to the upper Karnali River.
  • Kamet Peak (25,446 feet) is the highest peak in this range.

The Himalayan Ranges

  • Alternative Names : The Himalayan Ranges are known by various other names such as Himadri, Himavan , etc.
  • Composition : The Himalayan Range is the youngest mountain range in the world and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.
  • The southern boundary of the Himalayas is well-defined by the foothills but the northern boundary is rather obscure and merges with the edge of the Tibet Plateau.
  • Extent : The range of the main Himalayas stretches for a distance of over 2,400 km from the Indus Gorge in the west to the Brahmaputra Gorge in the east.
  • Width : The Himalayan Mountain Ranges are wider on the western side compared to the eastern side.
  • While the elevation of the Western Himalayas witnesses a gradual change, there is a comparatively rapid change in elevation in the Eastern Himalayas .
  • Sub-Divisions: The Himalayan Ranges are further subdivided into Greater Himalayas, Inner or Middle Himalayas, and Shiwalik .

The Greater Himalayas

  • They are also known as the Himadri , the Inner Himalayas , or the Central Himalayas.
  • These mountains are composed of Archaean rocks like granite , gneisses , and the ancient schist .
  • They extend towards the southeast across the regions of northern Pakistan, northern India, and Nepal
  • Thereafter, they curve eastwards across the regions of Sikkim and Bhutan .
  • Finally, they turn towards the northeast across the region of northern Arunachal Pradesh.
  • Some of the prominent peaks in the Greater Himalayas (from west to east) include – Nanga Parbat, Mount Everest, Kanchenjunga, and Namcha Barwa.
  • The orientation of slopes in this range is steep towards the north and gentle towards the south.

The Inner or Middle Himalayas

  • They are also called Lesser Himalayas or Lower Himalayas.
  • Their mean elevation is about 3,500 to 5,000 meters and their average width is about 60 to 80 km.
  • Prominent ranges comprising this sub-division of the Himalayas include – Nag Tibba, Mahabharat Range, Dhauladhar, the Pir Panjal, and the Mussoorie Range .
  • Various important rivers such as Jhelum and Chenab pass through this range.
  • The Jhelum River cuts through the Kashmir valley.
  • They are also home to some famous hill resorts like Shimla, Chail, Ranikhet, Chakrata, Nainital, Almora, etc.
  • The Middle Himalayas are also famous for the formation of Karewas , which refer to fluvioglacial deposits between the Greater Himalayas and the Middle Himalayas (Pir Panjal).

The Shiwalik or Outer Himalayas

  • The Shiwalik Hills are the southernmost range of the Himalayas which lie between the Middle Himalayas in the north and the Indo-Gangetic Plains in the south .
  • They are separated from the main Himalayan Range by valleys.
  • The portion of the Shiwalik lying in the region of Nepal is called the Churia Range.
  • The Shiwaliks are wider on the western side compared to the eastern side.
  • The upliftments of the Shiwaliks stopped the flow of many rivers, resulting in the formation of temporary lakes. The sediments being carried by these rivers were deposited at the bottom of these lakes. Over a period of time, the rivers could cut through the Shiwalik. As a result, water drained away from these lakes, and the sediments in the form of fertile alluvial soils were left behind.
  • It is these fertile alluvial soils, which are known as Doons in the west and Duars in the eastern part of India.
  • They are important for the cultivation of tea.

The Shiwalik or Outer Himalayas

The Eastern Hills or the Purvanchal

  • Towards the region of Dihang Gorge, the Himalayas take a rapid southward turn because of Syntaxial Bend and form a series of relatively low hills . Collectively, these hills are also called Purvanchal as they are located in the eastern part of India.
  • They extend from Arunachal Pradesh in the north to Mizoram in the south .
  • These hills constitute India’s border with Myanmar.
  • Prominent ranges comprising the Purvanchal include the following:

They are the northernmost range of Purvanchal, lying along the boundary between Arunachal Pradesh and Myanmar.

They lie to the south of Patkai Bum. They, along with Patkai Bum, form the watershed between India and Myanmar.

Manipur Hills

They are situated to the south of Naga Hills. The Barail Range splits the Naga Hills from the Manipur Hills.

Mizo Hills or Lushai Hills

They lie to the south of Manipur Hills.

Mizo Hills or Lushai Hills

Regional Division of Himalayas

Based on the longitudinal extent , the Himalayas have been divided into 4 regional divisions – Punjab Himalayas, Kumaon Himalayas, Nepal Himalayas, and Assam Himalayas.

Punjab Himalayas

  • It lies between the Indus River in the west and the Sutlej River in the east .
  • The majority of this region lies in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Hence, they are also known as Kashmir and Himachal Himalayas.
  • Nearly, all the ranges such as Karakoram, Pir Panjal, Ladakh, Zanskar and Dhauladhar are prominent in this section.
  • It is dominated by high snow-covered mountains, deep gorges, and high mountain passes.

Kumaon Himalayas

  • It lies between the Satluj River in the west and the Kali River in the east .
  • It is also known as Garhwal Himalayas in the west.
  • As compared to the Kashmir Himalayas, this region is more loftier.
  • Prominent peaks lying in this region include – Nanda Devi, Trisul, Kedarnath, Dunagiri, Kamet, Badrinath , etc.
  • This region is home to some of the major hill stations such as Nainital, Ranikhet, and Almora.

Nepal Himalayas

  • It stretches from the Kali River in the west to the Tista River in the east .
  • A majority of this section lies in Nepal , therefore it is called Nepal Himalayas.
  • This section is dominated by some of the tallest peaks in the world, including Mount Everest, Kanchenjunga, Dhaulagiri, etc.
  • The famous Valley of Kathmandu is located in this region.

Assam Himalayas

  • It is a sector of the Himalayas that lies between the Tista River in the west and the Brahmaputra River in the east .
  • In India, it covers the states such as Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
  • This sector is much lower in elevation when compared to the Nepal Himalayas.
  • The Himalayas make a sudden turn towards the south in the region of Arunachal Pradesh. Hence, ranges in the Assam Himalayas region are arranged in the north-south direction.
  • Namcha Barwa is the highest peak in this region.

Assam Himalayas

Sntaxial Bends of Himalayas

At its western and eastern extremities, the east-west trend of Himalayan Ranges is suddenly terminated and the continuous range takes a sharp turn southwards. These sharp bends are called Syntaxial Bends of the Himalayas.

Sntaxial Bends of Himalayas

Western Syntaxial Bend

It occurs at the western extremity of the Himalayas near the Nanga Parbat where the River Indus cut the deep gorge.

Eastern Syntaxial Bend

It occurs at the eastern extremity of the Himalayas near the Namcha Barwa (Arunachal Pradesh), where the mountain ranges turn southwards after crossing the Brahmaputra.

Comparison of Western and Eastern Himalayas

The Western Himalayan ranges lie the in the and the (Nepal) in the .The Eastern Himalayan range extends from the in the of the Himalayan Ranges.
In the portion of western Himalayan ranges, is attained in as the mountains from the plains rise in a series of stages. Thus, the higher mountain ranges are far away from the plains.The Eastern Himalayan ranges from the plains, thus peaks are not very far away from the plains such as Kanchenjunga.
The amount of rainfall in the Western Himalayan ranges is and is 1/4th of that of the Eastern Himalayan ranges.The Eastern Himalayan ranges face and they are covered with dense forests.
The dominant vegetation in the Western Himalayas includes and .The dominant vegetation in the Eastern Himalayas includes (along the foothills), , and
In terms of biodiversity, the Western Himalayas the Eastern Himalayas.Eastern Himalayan ranges have a due to the presence of Tropical Evergreen Forests. In fact, they are one of the in India.

Significance of the Himalayas

  • Owing to their high altitude, length, and direction, they effectively interrupt the summer monsoonal winds coming from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea and trigger precipitation in the form of rain or snow.
  • They also prevent cold winter winds from the Siberian region from entering India.
  • Security : These ranges have been protecting India from outside forces and intruders since ancient times thus serving as a defense barrier for India.
  • Perennial Source of Water : They are the source of the majority of large rivers of India, which form the footing of life in the entire north India.
  • Forest Wealth : They host the base of a rich forest that provides fuel wood and a huge diversity of raw materials for forest-based industries.
  • Agriculture : Though the Himalayan ranges do not provide extensive plains for agricultural activities, some of the slopes have been terraced for cultivation.
  • Minerals : The Himalayan region is a source of many valuable minerals such as Copper, Lead, Zinc, Nickel, Cobalt, Antimony, Tungsten, Gold, Silver, Limestone, Semi-Precious and Precious Stones, Gypsum, and Magnetite.
  • Hydroelectricity : Due to the presence of rugged topography and fast-flowing rivers, these mountain ranges hold a huge potential for Hydroelectricity.

Much more than just a geographical feature, the Himalayas carry multifarious significance for the Indian subcontinent. Of late, they have been facing some significant ecological challenges arising out of factors such as climate change, deforestation, pollution, and unregulated tourism. Ensuring the sustainability of the Himalayas is not just crucial for the subcontinent but for the ecological health of the entire planet. Sustainable development is the way forward.

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By Jeffrey Gettleman

  • Published Jan. 5, 2021 Updated Jan. 12, 2021

HIMALAYA A Human History By Ed Douglas

When I first came to India, I asked one of the most erudite politicians in the Indian government a question I had been scared to pose to anyone else but that seemed fundamental to understanding the region: Why does India have so many people? Geographically, it’s one-third the size of the United States but its population is nearly five times as large. The politician, who had had a long successful career in the United States as a business executive and seemed happy to explain just about anything to a new correspondent, stood up from his desk and walked over to a large wall map. He tapped a certain region, shaded brown and white.

“The answer,” he told me, “is the Himalaya.”

He explained that the world’s highest mountain range, home to Mount Everest and countless myths and counter-myths, had created such an immense river network that it left behind staggeringly rich soil across a vast swath of Asia. It’s no accident, he said, that on either side of these mountains lie the world’s two most populous nations, India and China. If you include Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, all of which also greatly depend on rivers sourced in the Himalaya , we’re talking about nearly half of humankind tied to these mountains.

The range, part of an even vaster highland region stretching more than 2,000 miles from Kyrgyzstan in the west to Myanmar in the east, has shaped Asia more than any geographical feature has shaped any other continent. The forces that drove religion, trade, learning and human interactions flowed across these mountains and their foothills for thousands of years. Even today, some of the rawest flash points in Asia, which can send armies rushing to the border and fighter jets roaring through the sky, lie high up in the Himalaya. The pros never put an “s” at the end of the word; it’s just Himalaya, which in Sanskrit means “abode of snow.”

In “Himalaya: A Human History,” the journalist Ed Douglas untangles the history of the mountains starting from when they were formed, about 50 million years ago, to the Everest climbing craze today. His book is the fruit of an enormous amount of research that focuses on the conquest of the mountains and the interconnected kingdoms and states that vied for control. His observations are sharp, and in many passages, his writing glows.

“As you leave the scruffy frontier town of Saga,” Douglas writes, “Tibet dries up like a husk. Traveling the same latitudes as Algeria, you pass sand dunes within sight of white summits. The light at dawn is sumptuous, turning the lower hills the color of honey and caramel, but it’s hard to imagine anything living in such austerity. Then you spot wild asses, khyang in Tibetan, cropping the meager white grass struggling out of the stony ground. The air is thin at 15,000 feet; everything feels closer, yet the vast scale of the landscape reduces you. It’s easy to see why a philosophy stressing the illusory nature of an individual consciousness, as Buddhism does, might prosper here. ”

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Because they can tolerate high altitudes, yaks are used as work animals in parts of the Himalayas.

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Introduction

The highest mountain range on Earth, the Himalayas form the northern border of the Indian subcontinent in Asia . The mountains extend in a massive arc for about 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) from west to east with more than 30 peaks rising to heights greater than 24,000 feet (7,300 meters) above sea level. These include Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak at 29,032 feet (8,849 meters), Kanchenjunga at 28,169 feet (8,586 meters), Makalu at 27,766 feet (8,463 meters), and Dhaulagiri at 26,795 feet (8,167 meters).

Several Indian states and the kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan lie along the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and the Tibetan Highlands border them in the north. The width of the mountain system varies from 125 to 250 miles (200 to 400 kilometers) from south to north, and the average height is 20,000 feet (6,100 meters). The Himalayas extend over about 229,500 square miles (594,400 square kilometers). India, Nepal, and Bhutan have sovereignty over most of them; Pakistan and China also occupy parts.

The Sanskrit name Himalayas, meaning “abode of snow,” truly characterizes the vast permanent snowfields above the snow line. These mountains pose the greatest challenge in the world to mountaineers.

Physical Characteristics

The most characteristic features of the Himalayas are their great height, complex geologic structure, snowcapped peaks, large valley glaciers, deep river gorges, and rich vegetation. From south to north the Himalayan ranges can be grouped into four parallel belts of varying width—these are the Outer, or Sub-, Himalayas; the Lesser, or Lower, Himalayas; the Great, or Higher, Himalayas; and the Tethys, or Tibetan, Himalayas. The Karakoram Range in the northwest is also sometimes considered part of the Himalayan system. The mountains can be divided broadly into three regions. The backbone of the system is the Great Himalayas, a single range rising above the snow line with nine of the 14 highest peaks in the world, including Mount Everest .

Geologically the Himalayas are relatively young folded mountains and are still undergoing the mountain-building process. Precambrian metamorphic rocks—rocks formed by heat and pressure from 4.6 billion to 570 million years ago—make up much of the structure. The uplift took place in at least three phases. The first phase occurred at the close of the Eocene epoch (about 33 million years ago) when the Great and Tethys Himalayas were uplifted. In the second phase, which occurred in the Miocene epoch (approximately 23 million to 5.3 million years ago), ranges of the Lesser Himalayas were formed. The final mountain-building phase started in the late Neogene period (about 7 million years ago) when the Siwalik Range, the foothills of the Outer Himalayas, were formed.

The Himalayas act as a great divide and influence the climatic conditions of the Indian subcontinent to the south and of the Central Asian highland to the north. The winter season lasts from October to February, the summer from March to June, and the rainy season from June to September. Climate varies considerably with altitude; the snow line generally lies at about 16,000 feet (4,900 meters) in the Great Himalayas. The annual and daily temperature variation is much greater in the foothills.

The mountain ranges obstruct the cold, dry air from the north into India in winter. They also force the monsoonal winds to give up moisture, causing heavy rain and snow on the Indian side but arid conditions in Tibet. Rainfall decreases from east to west—120 to 60 inches (300 to 150 centimeters). Cherrapunji in Meghalaya state in northeastern India is noted for the world’s second highest average annual rainfall of 450 inches (1,140 centimeters).

The Himalayas are drained by 19 major rivers, of which the Indus and the Brahmaputra are the largest. The Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej belong to the Indus system; the Yamuna, Ramganga, Kali, Gandak, and Kosi are part of the Ganges system; and the Tista, Raidak, and Manas belong to the Brahmaputra system. Rivers are more numerous and extensive on the southern slopes of the Himalayas and have great potential for producing hydroelectric power. The Bhakra Nangal multipurpose river-valley project, located on the Sutlej River, is one of the most extensive in India. Such major rivers as the Indus, Sutlej, and Brahmaputra have narrow and deep upper valleys that are older than the mountains themselves. Glaciers cover more than 12,700 square miles (32,900 square kilometers). One of the largest is Gangotri glacier in northern India—20 miles (32 kilometers) long. Glaciers feed most of the upper courses of the rivers, while the middle and lower courses are fed by rain. There are several freshwater lakes as well.

Plants and Animals

There is great variation in the Himalayan soils. The dark brown soils are well suited for growing fruit trees. The wet, deep, upland soils with high humus content—especially in the Darjeeling and Assam hills—are good for growing tea. Himalayan vegetation is based on altitude and rainfall and can be classified into four groups: tropical evergreen forests of rose chestnut, bamboo, alder, pine, laurel, and palm up to about 3,940 feet (1,200 meters); subtropical deciduous forest with sal, oak, and magnolia up to 7,220 feet (2,200 meters); temperate forests of cedar, birch, hazel, maple, and spruce from 7,220 to 8,860 feet (2,200 to 2,700 meters); and the alpine zone with juniper, rhododendron, mosses, lichens, and several kinds of flowering plants from 8,860 to 11,800 feet (2,700 to 3,600 meters). Alpine meadows are found up to 16,400 feet (5,000 meters).

Elephants, bison, and rhinoceroses inhabit the forested lower slopes of the Outer Himalayas. Snow leopards, brown bears, red pandas, and Tibetan yaks are found above the tree line—above 10,000 feet (3,050 meters). Black bears, langur monkeys, clouded leopards, and goat antelopes live in the foothills. Several animal species, such as the Indian rhinoceros, musk deer, and Kashmir stag, or hangul, were at the point of extinction but are now protected in several national parks and sanctuaries in India. There are catfish in most Himalayan streams, and butterflies are extremely varied and beautiful.

People and Economy

The people who inhabit the Great and the Tethys Himalayas are primarily of Tibeto-Burman descent, while the Lesser Himalayas are populated by people who trace their roots to Indo-European ancestors. The Gaddis are a hill people who herd sheep and goats. During winter they descend to the lowlands in search of food for their herds, but in summer they return to the higher pastures. The Gujars are also a migrating pastoral people. The major ethnic groups of Nepal are the Newars, Tamangs, Gurangs, Sherpas, and Gurkhas. The Sherpas, who live to the south of Mount Everest, are famous mountaineers. Major Himalayan summer resorts are at Almora, Darjeeling, Mussoorie, Naini Tal, Shimla, and Srinagar in India as well as Murree in Pakistan.

Economic resources abound in the Himalayas, including rich arable land, extensive grasslands and forests, workable mineral deposits, and tremendous potential for easily harnessed hydroelectric power. Terraced cultivation is carried on as high as 8,200 feet (2,500 meters). Rice, corn, wheat, millet, jute, sugarcane, and oilseeds are the major crops. Most of the fruit orchards—producing apples, peaches, pears, and cherries—are in the Kashmir and the Kulu valleys. Rich vineyards on the shores of Dal Lake in Kashmir produce grapes of good quality. Saffron, walnuts, and almonds are also grown in the Vale of Kashmir. Tea gardens abound in the foothills of the Darjeeling district. There are also plantations of cardamom and medicinal herbs. Sheep, goats, and yaks are raised on the rough grazing lands.

Mineral deposits include coal, bauxite, mica, gypsum, sapphires, petroleum, natural gas, chromite, copper, iron ore, borax, sulfur, graphite, lead, and zinc. Some alluvial gold is found in the Indus valley.

Poor transportation facilities in the Himalayas have acted as a barrier to economic growth. Only in the late 20th century were highways constructed to make the Himalayan region accessible from both north and south. Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, has an international airport. Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, has a domestic airport. There are only two narrow-gauge railroads from the northern plains of India into the Lesser Himalayas—one from Kalka to Shimla and the other from Shiliguri to Darjeeling.

The Himalayas were mapped for the first time in 1590 by a Spanish missionary to the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. The heights of the Himalayan peaks were first measured correctly in the middle of the 19th century. It was not realized until 1856 that Mount Everest is higher than any other peak in the world. Modern maps of the Himalayas have been prepared by Indian and German geographers and cartographers.

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Essay on Himalaya Mountains For Students in 1000 Words

In this article, you will read about the Essay on Himalaya Mountains for Students in 1000 Words. It comprises the formation, history, geography, weather conditions, trekking, traveling, and more about the Himalayan mountains.

Table of Contents

Essay on Himalaya Mountains (1000 Words)

Hi, and welcome to the beautiful world of the Himalaya Mountains. This world is a reminder of how strong nature is. These mountains hold secrets about how the Earth was formed.

The Himalayas are more than just a pretty background; they are home to many different cultures and a great trove of rare plants and animals. This article will teach you more about this wonderful mountain range.

How the Himalayas were formed?

Geologically, the Himalayas are pretty new. They were made about 70 million years ago. It’s interesting that the Himalayas are still getting higher, though very slowly.

How did the Himalayas get their shape?

The Himalayas are the world’s highest and youngest mountain range. They were formed when tectonic plates crashed into each other.

What the Himalayas look like physically: their division, area, and geography?

Most of the tallest mountains, like Mount Everest and K2, are in the Greater Himalayan range, which is also called the High Himalayas. You can also call the Lesser Himalayas the Middle Himalayas.

MountainHeight (in meters)Height (in feet)
Mount Everest8,848 meters29,029 feet
Mt. Dhaulagiri8,172 meters26,811 feet
Mt. Makalu8,481 meters27,825 feet
Mt. Kanchenjunga8,586 meters28,169 feet
K28,611 meters28,251 feet
Nanga Parbat8,126 meters26,660 feet
Annapurna8,078 meters26,509 feet
Nanda Devi7,817 meters25,646 feet

Learning about the three mountain ranges that constitute the Himalayas

The Greater Himalayas is the northernmost range. It has some of the world’s highest peaks and is known for its rough landscape and harsh weather.

In the Himalayas, K2 is the tallest mountain in the world

It is 8,611 meters (28,251 feet) above sea level. K2 is famous for being a difficult place to climb and having amazing natural beauty. It is also known as Mount Godwin-Austen or Chhogori.

What the Himalaya mountains weather and temperature are like?

The weather gets milder as you go up the hills, with cool summers and cold winters. The highest parts of the country are always covered in snow and experience freezing temps.

The Yeti and the History of the Himalaya Mountains

People all over the world are still fascinated by the Yeti legend, even though there is no solid proof to support its existence. It’s not just a myth that the Yeti exists; it represents the Himalayas’ secrets and wild spirit.

What do the Himalaya mountains mean for the environment?

A special link between nepal and the himalaya mountains.

Mountain trekking is a popular sport in Nepal that draws thrill-seekers from all over the world. Nepal is an interesting place to visit if you want to see the grandeur of the Himalayas because of its pristine landscapes, diverse wildlife, and lively cultures.

What earthquakes do to the Himalayas?

Mountain trekking and traveling in the himalayas.

Trekking and tourism in the Himalayas are important parts of the area. The Himalayas offer visitors a one-of-a-kind and unforgettable experience with their stunning landscapes, lively cultures, and wide range of animals.

Fun and interesting facts about the Himalayas

Here are some more interesting facts: Many important rivers in Asia start in the Himalayas. The Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, and the Yangtze are just a few. Four of the 34 species hotspots in the world are in the Himalayas.

The Himalayas are a natural wonder that will never go away

So get your boots on, pack your bags, and get ready for the trip of a lifetime in the beautiful Himalayas.

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Can We See Past the Myth of the Himalaya?

Himalayas

We drove higher and higher, the road corkscrewed tighter, and the air grew thinner. It was September of 2019 and I was travelling with my wife and two sons in the Indian province of Ladakh, deep in the Himalaya. We were on our way to the Nubra Valley, a high-altitude desert in the northeastern part of the province, close to the Chinese border. The road crossed the 17,428-foot-high Wari La Pass, at roughly the same elevation as Mt. Everest’s base camp.

As we climbed, there was a pounding in my temples; I wondered if we’d have to use the oxygen cylinder in the trunk. Mostly, I felt the isolation. There was no cell-phone coverage, and the vistas were forbidding in their emptiness. It felt like the end of the world; I worried about a breakdown.

Then we turned a corner and saw a man in a black coat lying under a car, changing a flat tire. He clambered out as we squeezed past, waving and yelling a cheerful “ Julley!  ” (a Ladakhi amalgamation of “hello” and “goodbye”). I was startled by the man’s nonchalance. In the back seat, a woman was snacking on a banana. Our driver told me that the man was probably a farmer heading to market—just another harried commuter.

I was hardly the first visitor whose view of the Himalaya was shaped by romantic fantasies, or paranoid neuroses. Ancient Indian sages wrote tales of flesh-eating demons and singing spirits (the Mahabharata makes several mentions of the Himalaya, whose name is Sanskrit for “abode of snow”). The Greeks and Romans—purportedly including Alexander the Great—were enthralled by Herodotus’ tales of giant gold-digging ants in the mountains; scholars today assume that the traveller and historian was referring to the Himalayan marmot, a nervous, furry mammal that wanders the lower altitudes. “Mountains have always been places for lowlanders to exercise their imaginations,” writes Ed Douglas near the start of “Himalaya: A Human History” (Norton), his ambitious, learned account of the ranges. “The abode of snow has offered a vast white screen on which to project the fantasies of all comers: exiled kings, foreign imperialists, spiritual seekers, self-important explorers, archeologists, missionaries, spies, mapmakers, artists, hippies—and climbers.”

Douglas, an accomplished mountaineer and the author of eight previous books on the subject, is refreshingly aware of his own romanticizations. A child of the English suburbs, he writes that he was mesmerized by the mythic mountains, “a castle of impossible dreams”; on an early trip, he “found a door marked ‘adventure’ and stepped through it.” The Himalaya that Douglas seeks to capture in this book are at once more prosaic and more fascinating than the idealized version. Although he doesn’t overlook ecology or geology, his focus, as the subtitle indicates, is on the history of the people in the region. In twenty teeming—at times over-teeming—chapters, Douglas portrays a complex, populated landscape and an intricate patchwork of cultures. Some two hundred and forty million inhabitants speak more than four hundred languages and practice at least twelve religions. “Where did mythology end and reality begin?” Douglas asks. His book seeks to reclaim humans from geography, and to recapture the lived experience of the Himalaya.

The tendency toward mythologization is understandable. The greater Himalayan mountain system (which also includes the Pamir, Hindu Kush, and Karakoram ranges) stretches across some two and a half thousand miles and at least eight countries, from Afghanistan to Myanmar. It features the hundred highest mountains, such as Mt. Everest, K2, and Kanchenjunga. Salman Rushdie has described the Himalaya as “land’s attempt to metamorphose into sky.” This sense of awe—and otherworldliness—is deepened by the presence of fossilized shells and sea creatures many thousands of feet above sea level, remnants of a massive collision that occurred around fifty million years ago, when a fragment of the supercontinent Gondwanaland hit the Eurasian tectonic plate and the earth began crumpling upward. (The Himalaya are still growing by around two centimetres a year, according to some estimates.)

For centuries, this formidable terrain has sheltered the people and cultures of the Himalaya and also obscured them. Out of that obscurity rose a thousand gauzy tales about mysterious forbidden cities and enchanted Shangri-Las and Shambalas. Buddhism—Tibetan Buddhism, in particular—played a key role in these narratives, draping the Himalaya in an aura of benign spirituality and etherealness. Douglas painstakingly reconstructs a grittier history, of the region’s ancient wars, invasions, and dynastic bloodletting. The over-all impression is less of a region above ordinary human compulsions than of a hotbed of high-altitude Realpolitik.

Before the nineteenth century, there were a few intrepid explorations into the mountains—by Rajput kings and Mongols, by Marco Polo, and by a smattering of determined Jesuit missionaries. It wasn’t until the arrival of British colonialism, however, that the barrier was definitively breached. In 1802, the East India Company embarked upon what became known as the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, to produce detailed maps of the subcontinent. One of the greatest scientific achievements of the age—and perhaps of all time—the survey was conducted by an army of officials and human “computers” who dragged a half-ton theodolite (an instrument for measuring angles) and a mounted telescope known as a zenith sector across the country’s jungles and plains. The project was supposed to last a few years, but it took seven decades, and hundreds of deaths, for accurate measurements of the region, including the mountains, to be completed.

Opinion had long been divided on whether the Himalaya were indeed the earth’s highest range. But as the British inched forward, measuring one peak after another—Nanda Devi (25,646 feet), Dhaulagiri I (26,795 feet), and Kanchenjunga (28,169 feet)—the full gargantuan splendor of the mountains slowly unfurled. Finally, the surveyors set their instruments on a distant, fog-obscured protuberance that, measured at more than twenty-nine thousand feet, was revealed to be the highest mountain on the planet. The Tibetans called it Chomolungma (often translated as “Mother Goddess of the World”); for the Nepalis, it was Sagarmatha (“Peak of Heaven”). The head of the surveying operation instead named it Mt. Everest, after his retired predecessor, George Everest, who was by this time back in England and never set eyes on the mountain that bears his name.

Cartography is a form of control. “The Great Arc,” John Keay’s account of the surveying operation, argues that the undertaking was both a scientific triumph and an exercise in imperial authority. As the mountains were mapped and labelled, they began to lose their aura of inaccessibility. The Great Survey heralded a golden age of Himalayan exploration and exploitation, in which young European men, monocles firmly in place and teakettles securely lashed to their porters’ sacks, set out in the explorer-conqueror mold of Christopher Columbus and Captain Cook. But even as these exploits eroded the Himalaya’s inscrutability they marked a new phase of mythologization. The mountains became stages for mystical self-discovery and Nietzschean improvement. Francis Younghusband, the British explorer, author, and spy, wrote that the Himalaya offered an opportunity for “evolving from ourselves beings of a higher order.” George Mallory, who disappeared on Mt. Everest during an ill-fated summit attempt in 1924, is reputed to have said, “If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.”

A line runs from such ponderous (and self-aggrandizing) proclamations to more contemporary attitudes. The Beatles went to Rishikesh, India, to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, seeking—as they put it in one of their song titles—“The Inner Light.” (Their Himalayan fantasies were replaced by disillusionment with the Maharishi, memorialized in “Sexy Sadie.”) In 1960, in “Tintin in Tibet,” Hergé’s young hero established his bravery and selflessness in encounters with Buddhist monks and the Yeti; over the following decades, books such as Peter Matthiessen’s “Snow Leopard” and Andrew Harvey’s “A Journey in Ladakh” chronicled personal spiritual pilgrimages. In 1997, Jon Krakauer captured the popular imagination with “Into Thin Air,” an account of eight deaths during a crowded, tragic day on Everest. Although the book was a clear-eyed critique of Himalayan commercialization, its popularity ignited a boom in amateur mountaineering and adventure tourism.

Many millions of people now visit the Himalayan region in a typical year. Some four thousand climbers have attempted to summit Everest in each of the past two decades, a fifty-per-cent increase over the period when Krakauer wrote his book. Satellite phones and charter flights penetrate the formerly inviolable geography, and climbers on Mt. Everest have access to Wi-Fi at seventeen thousand six hundred feet. Himalayan myths endure, but old tropes about self-cultivation through adventure have been repackaged and commodified, marketed to eager consumers desperate for a taste of authenticity. The snow-capped peaks and dramatic glaciers have been reduced to props in a great big human reality show: backdrops for a thousand selfies and boastful social-media feeds—destinations, as the author Jamaica Kincaid puts it, for “people from rich countries in the process of experiencing the world as spectacle.”

Kincaid writes this as she boards a rickety airplane following a long hike in Nepal, near the end of her gardening-and-mountaineering memoir, “Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya.” Originally released in 2005, the book has now been reissued by Picador, partly in response to what her publishers identify as the erasure of people of color in nature writing. One of the most compelling aspects of this slim, elegant narrative is the way Kincaid captures—gently, unpolemically—a similar tendency toward erasure by visitors to the Himalaya: a habit of relegating local people to the background, of accentuating the sublimity of landscape over what Douglas calls “Himalayan voices.”

Kincaid’s journey is inspired by a horticulturalist friend, who invites her to go hunting for seeds of rare flowering plants in Nepal. Botany, as both Kincaid and Douglas explain, has a long history of entanglement with colonialism. Kincaid, who grew up in Antigua, is acutely conscious of this history, even as she hunts for exotic species to decorate her New England garden and struggles to remember the names of her native attendants. (She refers to them instead only by their functions—“Cook” and “Table.”)

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Her prose is limpid, her descriptions of nature knowledgeable and often exquisite. But there is a kind of auto-subversion at play in this writing, its abstruseness—the litany of Latin plant names, the author’s frequent evocations of “Eden” and “idylls”—serving as an implicit reminder of all the surrounding reality, the lives and names, that she overlooks. “I was making this trip with the garden in mind,” Kincaid writes, “so everything I saw, I thought, How would this look in the garden?”

It is the fall of 2002; Kincaid is dimly aware that the King of Nepal has dissolved parliament and that it has something to do with the Maoist revolution convulsing the nation. As she drives past the royal palace, she reflects, “I should have been properly interested in that, but I was not at all.” At the airport, she sees soldiers in blue camouflage fatigues, but her thoughts turn quickly away from politics, and again to nature (the blue, she reflects, must be to match the Himalayan sky). Still, evidence of human perturbations mounts. There is a shortage of beer in small mountain towns (the revolutionaries proscribe alcohol), and Kincaid notices red stars and writing on the walls of schools and bridges. A succession of extortionist Maoists show up, demanding payments from Kincaid’s party and subjecting them to political lectures and anti-American tirades. Kincaid begins telling people she’s Canadian.

The tension builds in this way—gradually, subtly, so that a book about gardening improbably takes on the effect of a thriller. Toward the end of the hike, in the village of Donje, Kincaid’s party comes across a police station that has been burned down by Maoists, and a school and a religious building that have been shuttered. Soon a group of men appears, the lapels of their shirts and jackets marked with red stars, bringing with them an air of violence. That night, as Kincaid lies in her sleeping bag listening to booms in the distance that she is told are Maoist bombs, the reality of these mountains is undeniable: in the twenty-first century, the true hazards (and adventures) of the Himalaya emanate not so much from their daunting topography or arduous terrain as from human beings, riven by clashing ideologies and allegiances.

Late at night on June 15, 2020, on a ridge above the swirling waters of the Galwan River in Ladakh, an argument over a border post escalated into a fierce confrontation between members of the 16th Bihar Regiment of the Indian Army and troops from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The skirmish reportedly lasted around seven hours, and at its peak some three hundred men were involved. Because mutually agreed-upon rules barred the use of firearms in the area, the soldiers resorted to rocks and nail-spiked clubs. Twenty people died on the Indian side; the number of Chinese casualties remains unknown. Many of the troops died from hypothermia, or from falling into the icy river below.

The world, more accustomed to India’s conflict with Pakistan, was astonished by news of this clash with the region’s other military heavyweight. For Indians, the incident was an unexpected upsurge in hostilities that had largely receded after the brief but bloody Sino-Indian War of 1962. I grew up on stories of that war. My grandfather’s brother was killed in it—mowed down, according to family lore, by Chinese machine gunners high in the Himalayan glaciers—and my history teacher in high school was a retired Army general who spent time as a prisoner of war in China. These killings more than half a century later were a dismal indication of how the Himalaya remain crisscrossed by conflict. Most of the history Douglas recounts takes place in the distant past; readers are more likely to come away with images of horse-mounted, spear-wielding warriors than of tanks and nuclear weaponry. Yet the mountains occupy one of the most politically fraught corners of the world, marked by contested borders and roads, and great-power rivalries that are likely to shape international relations for the rest of the century.

For about three and a half decades, Indians and Pakistanis have been fighting—and dying—on the disputed Siachen Glacier. (At some twenty thousand feet, it is often referred to as “the world’s highest battlefield.”) Pakistani and Afghan troops likewise engage in skirmishes along the mountainous Durand Line, which separates their countries; India and Nepal tussle over twenty-one of their twenty-six adjoining districts; and last year, shortly after the Sino-Indian clashes in Ladakh, China laid claim to a swath of territory in Bhutan. Such disputes take place alongside a number of armed insurrections and mini civil wars: in Kashmir, in Tibet, in the province of Balochistan, and in the Terai region in Nepal. Many of these conflicts are the legacy of vaguely or illogically drawn colonial maps, but have been heightened in recent years by China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In 2019, Xi Jinping visited Nepal, long considered by New Delhi to be within its sphere of influence, and pledged to build a trans-Himalayan railway that would run from Tibet to the Indian border. Partly in response, the United States encouraged Nepal to accept five hundred million dollars in grants. A Chinese-government spokesperson, in turn, decried America’s “arrogance, prejudice, selfishness, and narrow-mindedness.”

Such geopolitical tensions are intimately linked with another human scourge: the catastrophe of global warming. According to a recent report, more than a third of Himalayan glaciers may melt by the end of the century, even assuming dramatic reductions in global carbon emissions. Without such reductions, the figure is closer to two-thirds. The region’s rivers, which help sustain nearly two billion people and run through at least sixteen countries, could dry up, and the dwindling glaciers are already prompting a rush for control of ecological resources. Sunil Amrith, a professor at Harvard University, has noted that some five hundred dams are currently being built or planned in the region. These projects threaten to displace populations, flood ancient homelands, further jeopardize already endangered species, and heighten rivalries between neighbors.

The unfolding ecological catastrophe on what is often called the planet’s third pole receives considerably less attention than similar disasters playing out on the other two poles. A more familiar image of environmental crisis in the Himalaya is of waste on one particular mountain. Krakauer, among others, vividly described discarded oxygen cylinders and piles of human feces tainting the slopes of Mt. Everest. As always, the tallest peak stands in for the entire range. But, as dispiriting as such reports are, they greatly understate the real problem.

In an upcoming book, “The Next Everest” (St. Martin’s), Jim Davidson, an American mountaineer and an author, in some ways follows in the literary trail blazed by Krakauer. He includes now familiar descriptions of a cosmopolitan tribe of experienced and amateur climbers who gather outside tents and in shared kitchens, equipped with G.P.S. devices, satellite phones, and other accoutrements of their trade. When it comes to the environment, though, Davidson is more sanguine than Krakauer, describing recent efforts by governments and civil-society organizations to clear refuse from Everest.

At the same time, his narrative suggests the sheer scale of the remaining challenges. He provides a gripping account of a series of avalanches on Everest on April 25, 2015, which followed a powerful earthquake in Nepal. Davidson was on the mountain that day as an avalanche swept through base camp and killed at least nineteen people, making it the deadliest recorded incident on those slopes. The earthquake also claimed almost nine thousand lives across the rest of the country.

Although Davidson doesn’t make the point, the disaster was likely exacerbated at least in part by climate change: scientists have been warning for years that warmer temperatures, which disproportionately affect higher altitudes, are loosening snowpacks and weakening glaciers, increasing the risk of avalanches. The impact of global climate change is evident even to casual visitors to the region. On my recent trip to Ladakh, I saw brown and black patches in the distant glaciers, the result, I learned, of a substance known as cryoconite—an accumulation of microbes and dust, soot, and other forms of pollution—which floats in from coal plants and forest fires. The patches are like bruises; they are the toll exacted by the growing human presence on these once sacred peaks.

In “Among Flowers,” Kincaid and her hiking party, as they descend from the mountains, pass flowering begonia, poinsettia, and datura, and traverse roaring glacier-fuelled streams. They meet a man who, they later find out, will be stripped and robbed by the revolutionaries, and they end up in a village where they sit naked in a river drinking bottles of beer. Kincaid leaves her group and, seeking to relieve her bladder, heads into the empty hills—“somewhere I thought it would be impossible for me to be seen.”

As Kincaid crouches along the river, exposed, she spots a stretch of blue on the other side of the water. She assumes it is part of the landscape: perhaps where water meets sky. But then the water and sky wave at her, and they cheer, and Kincaid realizes that there are villagers on the opposite bank. Their presence has been concealed by the brilliant Himalayan blue. People are everywhere in these mountains; as travellers should have understood from the start, it is wise not to overlook them. ♦

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the aid the United States offered Nepal and misstated the title of Jamaica Kincaid’s book.

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Geography Notes

Essay on the himalayas | india | mountains | geography.

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Here is an essay on ‘The Himalayas’ especially written for school and college students.

The fauna of Himalayan sub-region resemble of both the Oriental and Palaearctic regions. The animals such as Tiger, Leopard, Bear, Wild pig and Snow leopard are found on both sides of Himalaya in the Palaearctic and Oriental regions.

It seems that these animals might have migrated to India in the distant past through narrow passageway presented by the flood-plains and the gorges of the Brahmaputra-Ganges river systems or the early stages of formation of the Himalayan massif, which at that time, did not form the unsurpassable barrier as found today.

It is to be noted here that the geological structures of Himalaya are of recent origin and in the past was not barrier to animal movements as it is today. Distribution of fauna and flora is affected by the influence of altitudinal changes and amount of rainfall.

Hence, much of the high altitude fauna of this area extends over the whole complex of mountain ranges and is typical of both the Oriental and Palaearctic regions. In addition of the influence of altitudinal-change on ecology, there are marked east-west variations due to decrease in monsoon rainfall towards the west.

Himalaya of eastern region receive heavy rainfall and practically no snowfall except in very high altitude; which has resulted in profuse growth of tropical fauna and flora are also different, having similarities with the Chinese fauna of Palaearctic.

In the western Himalaya, rainfall is less and climate is temperate with heavy rainfall; thus the flora differs both in physionomy and structure and the fauna is also very different having affinities with the Chinese fauna of the Palaearctic.

Thus, there are altitudinal as well as east-west variations in this region. The fauna of Himalayan Mountain Systems have been further divided into three sub-zones, each with its characteristic assemblage of animals such as Himalayan Foothills from the eastern frontiers of Kashmir to Assam, the High Altitude Regions of Western Himalayas from Kashmir including western Ladakh to Kumaon, and the Eastern Himalayas.

(i) The Himalayan Foothills:

The Himalayan Foothills consist of Tarai, Bhabar and Siwalik ranges in the south. The Bhabar tract consists of thick boulder deposits where the water-table is very low and the conditions are relatively drier. The Tarai region consists of thick deposits of fine silt, the drainage is poor and the water-table is high.

The natural monsoon forest extends well into this region. This Tarai region is characterised by tall grassy meadows and savannah vegetation. Here, sal is the dominant species. This is one of the richest areas for the typical big mammals of Northern India.

Tiger, Elephant, Sambhar, Swamp deer, Cheetal, Hog deer, Barking deer, and Wild boar are all around in this area. Panther and Wild dog are the co-predators followed by Hyaena and Jackal as the scavengers on the remains of the tiger-kill. Both Black and Sloth bears are found in this area.

Amongst the rodents, Porcupine is the most prominent animal. The Great Indian One-horned Rhinoceros which once ranged all along the Himalayan foothills is now confined to a few pockets in Assam and Nepal Tarai and is considered a rare species.

Another animal is the Wild Buffalo which is the largest bovid in the world. The only other habitat where this great bovid now exists is in the Godavari catchment of the States of Madhya Pradesh, Orissa (where now reported to be extinct) and Andhra Pradesh. The Gaur (India Bison) is also found sharing the habitat with rhinoceros and wild buffalo.

Brow-antlered Deer is another rare species found in this region confined to Keibul Lamjao National Park in Manipur. This deer lives on a floating mass of vegetation-deposits called as “phumdi” and due to its locomotion on floating habitat, has been named as “Dancing deer” by the late E.P. Gee.

This deer is probably being the most threatened deer in the world. This area also supports some animals found nowhere else in the Oriental region such as the Gangetic gharial, the sole representative of the family gavialidae, occurs in the Himalayan tributaries of the river Ganges.

Apart from these, the Hispid-hare and Pigmy-hog, thought previously to be extinct, were rediscovered in 1971 in Manas National Park of Assam. Again in Manas National Park, E.P. Gee was able to find the existence of a new species of monkey, the Golden Langur, which is now named after him as Presbytes geei.

This langur is of golden-chestnut colour in winter and paler during the summer but the youngs are practically whitened. They exist in some localized patches on either sides of the Manas River in India as well as Bhutan.

(ii) The High Altitude Regions of Western Himalayas:

It consists Kashmir and western Ladakh to Kumaon regions. This region occupies the higher altitudinal-zone from 1500 m to about 2500 m having coniferous forests at the lower level and alpine scrub at the higher level. Rhododendron, dwarf hill bamboo and birch forests mixed with alpine pastures extend above the pine-belt up to the snow-line extending up to the cold-desert plateau of Ladakh in the extreme north-west.

These higher reaches above the coniferous-belt represent the alpine-zone. The climate is temperate and low rainfall with heavy snowfall. The pine-belt mostly acts as a transition-zone for the rich fauna of the alpine- zone in the higher altitude.

During winter, when environment in the alpine-zone becomes extremely cold, a number of species move down in this region; and with the summer thaw, the alpine pastures again turn green and become the grazing-grounds of most of these animals.

The animals found in this part of the Himalaya are adapted to intense cold and harsh conditions of the climate. Their coat is thick in the winter and thinner in the summer and the seasonal-coats are often such differently coloured that they-merge with the background and conceal the animals. The interesting feature is that all the animals, except the two antelopes (Chiru and Tibetan-gazelle), are sharp-eyed and adapted for climbing the rocks (sure-footed rock climbers).

The family bovidae is well represented in the higher altitudinal part of Himalaya. Three species of Wild Goats occur in the Indian Himalaya such as Tahr, Markhor and Ibex. Tahr has short horns set close together on top of the head, roams in the highest coniferous forest, gregarious in nature , grazing in herds and sentinels mount a look out for possible danger.

Markhor lives higher on the rocky slopes and cliffs above the tree-line. It is the finest of all goats with long horns shaped like thick and heavy cork-screws. The fur of markhor is rich reddish- brown turning to grey in winter. Like all wild goats, it is an amazingly agile climber. In winter, it retreats to lower slopes where forage is more plentiful and even climb along the branches of evergreen oaks to browse its leaves.

The Ibex is found in the Western Himalaya. But unlike tahr and markhor, which are limited to the Himalaya, ibex has a much wider range inhabiting mountainous regions all over Central Asia from the Himalaya to the Altai and extending westwards as far as Spain. The ibex Lives mainly above the tree-line grasing between rocky cracks and on meadows just below the snow-line.

Among the Wild Sheeps, there are also three species typical of the Western Himalaya such as Nayan or Great Tibetan sheep, Bharal or Blue sheep and Shapu or Urial. Nayan is the largest species of wild sheep and extends from Ladakh to Tibet. It has magnificent horns which curve round in the sweep making more than a complete circle. The Bharal occurs in the Western Himalaya extending to Sikkim and Nepal.

It has characters intermediate between the sheep and goat. It is found at the altitudes of 3600 m to 5000 m and feed on the rich abundant grass on the alpine meadows. They feed in herds during summer except the old males which forage at higher elevations. During the rest of the year, the ewes congregate in small groups round the male.

Their colour of salty-blue merges perfectly with the rocky outcrops of their habitat and it is difficult to spot them it they are motionless. The Shapu is the smallest of the wild sheep and inhabits grassy mountain slopes usually below the tree-line. It has probably contributed to the stock of domesticated-sheep.

The largest bovid, the Wild Yak is found in Ladakh and Tibet, though it has been domesticated for centuries by the people of the area. They are black with long black horns and a little white on the muzzle.

Two kinds of antelopes, Chiru and Tibetan-gazelle complete the list of Himalayan and Tibetan bovids. Both graze on the high cold plateau regions in Tibet and adjoining areas. The Chiru has swollen muzzle which may be an adaptation for breathing cold and rarefied air. One of the typical animals of high altitude, cold-desert regions of Ladakh and Tibet is the Wild Ass.

Two deer are characteristic of the Western Himalayan high alpine-zone viz. Hangul or Kashmir Stag and Shou or Sikkim Stag. The Hangul is the local representative of the European red-deer and is confined to the Dachigam National Park of Jammu & Kashmir State.

The Shou is another race of red deer (much larger than the hangul) which occurs in the Chumbi Valley in Tibet and Sikkim. The Musk Deer is another deer which inhabits the high altitudes bordering the tree-line. This deer is much valued for its musk-pods collected from the males and used in the manufacture of high level perfume.

Apart from these, many smaller mammals live above the tree-line. The typical among them is Marmot. The Himalayan or Bobak Marmot is a stoutly built animal having short bushy tail and very small ears. Marmots live in a large colony. They dwell in burrows and feed on grass around the burrows. In autumn, they drag dry grasses into these burrows and hibernate in this warm bedding.

They become active in spring and youngs are born. In the high mountains of Kashmir, little Woolly Flying Squirrels live which are clumsy creatures capable of gliding like its other relatives. Pikas or Mouse Hares are found in the mountains at altitudes from 2500 m to above 4000 m.

Though, they are similar in appearance to guinea-pigs but belong to the rabbit and hare family. These small mammals get suitable climate by burrowing underground. Though there are few species in the alpine-zone, but the food-chain is apparent and well-balanced.

There are predators among birds and mammals. The Himalayan Golden Eagle preys on marmots, snow cocks and snow partridges; and the little Tibetan Weasel feeds on birds and their eggs. The most beautiful animal is the Snow Leopard having a long thick coat of smoky-grey with black rosettes.

It is smaller than the average panther and is mainly solitary and hunts at night. It preys on wild sheep, goat and musk deer and follows them up and down the mountainous slopes on their seasonal-migration. The other predators include Wolf, Fox, Black and Brown Bears, smaller cats like Pallas cat.

Among the birds, the region has a number of pheasants like Himalayan Monal Pheasant, Western Tragopan, Satyr Tragopan, Koklass, Whitecrested Khalij and Cheer Pheasant. Pheasants have the most attractive plumage and are hunted for their meat as well as feathers. Griffon Vultures, Lammergiers, Choughs and Ravens are the scavenger birds which follow man as well as wandering yak or wild sheep wherever they roam.

(iii) The Eastern Himalayas:

The forests of this region are dense, semi- evergreen to evergreen at the foothills of the Eastern Himalaya. The character of vegetation changes at altitudes of 1 525 m to 1830 m; oaks, magnolias, laurels and birches covered with moss and ferns replace sal, silk-cotton trees and giant bamboos of the foothills.

At about 2745 to 3660 m, coniferous forests of pine, fir, yew and junipers are found. There is an undergrowth of scrubby rhododendrons and dwarf bamboos. The boundary between temperate and tropical forests of lower altitude and foothills is not sharply defined. Due to high humidity and much higher rainfall; lichens, mosses, orchids and other epiphytes cover the tree trunks. The temperate-belt occupies much higher altitudes than in the west. Snowfall is less common.

The animal life (fauna) in the temperate region is different from the Western Himalaya and is characterised by the presence of India- Chinese fauna. The Red Panda, Hog Badgers, Ferret Badgers, Crestless Porcupines are typical species of this area. Three kinds of Goat-antelopes, which are relatives of the European chamois, also occur in the Eastern Himalaya such as Serow, Goral and Takin.

Serow has black coat, large ears, white beard and a grayish mane. It lives mostly in the Eastern Himalaya in forests around 2000 m and also extends into the tropics in Malaya and Sumatra where it occurs at lower altitudes on steep limestone outcrops.

Goral is a smaller goat found throughout the Himalayan range both in the Western and Eastern Himalayas living on rugged grassy hill sites and on rocky grounds near the conifer forests. It is remarkably agile on the precipitous clifts and screes.

It is a favourite game-animal of the sportsmen visiting Himalayan hill resorts like the chamois in Europe. Takin is the largest goat and characterises the Eastern Himalayan forests near the tree-line. In summer, large herds graze above the tree-line but in winter they break up into smaller groups and migrate to grassy valleys lower down the mountains.

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great himalayas essay in english

The most characteristic features of the Himalayas are their soaring heights, steep-sided jagged peaks, valley and alpine glaciers often of stupendous size, topography deeply cut by erosion, seemingly unfathomable river gorges, complex geologic structure, and series of elevational belts (or zones) that display different ecological associations of flora, fauna, and climate. Viewed from the south, the Himalayas appear as a gigantic crescent with the main axis rising above the snow line , where snowfields, alpine glaciers, and avalanches all feed lower-valley glaciers that in turn constitute the sources of most of the Himalayan rivers. The greater part of the Himalayas, however, lies below the snow line. The mountain-building process that created the range is still active. As the bedrock is lifted, considerable stream erosion and gigantic landslides occur.

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The Himalayan ranges can be grouped into four parallel longitudinal mountain belts of varying width, each having distinct physiographic features and its own geologic history. They are designated, from south to north, as the Outer, or Sub-, Himalayas (also called the Siwalik Range ); the Lesser, or Lower, Himalayas ; the Great Himalaya Range ( Great Himalayas ); and the Tethys, or Tibetan, Himalayas . Farther north lie the Trans-Himalayas in Tibet proper. From west to east the Himalayas are divided broadly into three mountainous regions: western, central, and eastern.

great himalayas essay in english

Over the past 65 million years, powerful global plate-tectonic forces have moved Earth ’s crust to form the band of Eurasian mountain ranges—including the Himalayas—that stretch from the Alps to the mountains of Southeast Asia .

During the Jurassic Period (about 201 to 145 million years ago), a deep crustal downwarp—the Tethys Ocean —bordered the entire southern fringe of Eurasia, then excluding the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent . About 180 million years ago, the old supercontinent of Gondwana (or Gondwanaland ) began to break up. One of Gondwana’s fragments, the lithospheric plate that included the Indian subcontinent, pursued a northward collision course toward the Eurasian Plate during the ensuing 130 to 140 million years. The Indian-Australian Plate gradually confined the Tethys trench within a giant pincer between itself and the Eurasian Plate. As the Tethys trench narrowed, increasing compressive forces bent the layers of rock beneath it and created interlacing faults in its marine sediments. Masses of granites and basalts intruded from the depth of the mantle into that weakened sedimentary crust. Between about 40 and 50 million years ago, the Indian subcontinent finally collided with Eurasia. The plate containing India was sheared downward, or subducted, beneath the Tethys trench at an ever-increasing pitch.

great himalayas essay in english

During the next 30 million years, shallow parts of the Tethys Ocean gradually drained as its sea bottom was pushed up by the plunging Indian-Australian Plate; that action formed the Plateau of Tibet . On the plateau’s southern edge, marginal mountains—the Trans-Himalayan ranges of today—became the region’s first major watershed and rose high enough to become a climatic barrier. As heavier rains fell on the steepening southern slopes, the major southern rivers eroded northward toward the headwaters with increasing force along old transverse faults and captured the streams flowing onto the plateau, thus laying the foundation for the drainage patterns for a large portion of Asia . To the south the northern reaches of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal rapidly filled with debris carried down by the ancestral Indus , Ganges (Ganga), and Brahmaputra rivers. The extensive erosion and deposition continue even now as those rivers carry immense quantities of material every day.

Finally, some 20 million years ago, during the early Miocene Epoch , the tempo of the crunching union between the two plates increased sharply, and Himalayan mountain building began in earnest. As the Indian subcontinental plate continued to plunge beneath the former Tethys trench, the topmost layers of old Gondwana metamorphic rocks peeled back over themselves for a long horizontal distance to the south, forming nappes . Wave after wave of nappes thrust southward over the Indian landmass for as far as 60 miles (about 100 km). Each new nappe consisted of Gondwana rocks older than the last. In time those nappes became folded, contracting the former trench by some 250 to 500 horizontal miles (400 to 800 km). All the while, downcutting rivers matched the rate of uplift , carrying vast amounts of eroded material from the rising Himalayas to the plains where it was dumped by the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers. The weight of that sediment created depressions, which in turn could hold more sediment. In some places the alluvium beneath the Indo-Gangetic Plain now exceeds 25,000 feet (7,600 metres) in depth.

Probably only within the past 600,000 years, during the Pleistocene Epoch (roughly 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago), did the Himalayas become the highest mountains on Earth. If strong horizontal thrusting characterized the Miocene and the succeeding Pliocene Epoch (about 23 to 2.6 million years ago), intense uplift epitomized the Pleistocene. Along the core zone of the northernmost nappes—and just beyond—crystalline rocks containing new gneiss and granite intrusions emerged to produce the staggering crests seen today. On a few peaks, such as Mount Everest , the crystalline rocks carried old fossil-bearing Tethys sediments from the north piggyback to the summits.

Once the Great Himalayas had risen high enough, they became a climatic barrier: the marginal mountains to the north were deprived of rain and became as parched as the Plateau of Tibet. In contrast, on the wet southern flanks the rivers surged with such erosive energy that they forced the crest line to migrate slowly northward. Simultaneously, the great transverse rivers breaching the Himalayas continued their downcutting in pace with the uplift. Changes in the landscape, however, compelled all but those major rivers to reroute their lower courses because, as the northern crests rose, so also did the southern edge of the extensive nappes. The formations of the Siwalik Series were overthrust and folded, and in between the Lesser Himalayas downwarped to shape the midlands. Now barred from flowing due south, most minor rivers ran east or west through structural weaknesses in the midlands until they could break through the new southern barrier or join a major torrent.

In some valleys, such as the Vale of Kashmir and the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal , lakes formed temporarily and then filled with Pleistocene deposits. After drying up some 200,000 years ago, the Kathmandu Valley rose at least 650 feet (200 metres), an indication of localized uplift within the Lesser Himalayas.

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Essay on “The Himalayas” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

The Himalayas

The Himalayas are the highest mountain ranges in the world. They lie from Jammu and Kashmir in the north-west to Assam and Meghalaya in the east. A part of the Himalayas lies in Nepal, Bhutan and China. In Pakistan, they extend up to the Hindukush.

Everest which is a part of the Himalayas is the highest mountain peak in the world. It lies in Nepal Tenzing and Hillary were the first persons who scaled this peak in 1953. Since then, it has been scaled by several men and women of different countries.

India has a great advantage of the Himalayas which lie to her north. For one thing, they protect the Indians plains from the austerity of intensely cold winds from China that would otherwise blow over them.

The Himalayas are very high. So, they are always covered with a thick layer of snow which melts partially in summer. Thus, all the major rivers of India like the Ganga, the Yamuna, the Sutlej, the Beas and the Brahmputra flow to the Indian plains from the glaciers situated in the Himalayas.

There is a dense growth of trees and plants on the Himalayas. These trees and plants are very important for purifying the air and for causing rain. There also live wild animals in these forests and birds also build nests in trees.

Several kinds of herbs grow on the Himalayan slopes. Many of these herbs are also important from medical point of view. A lot of timber is also obtained from these forests. Some of the plants are useful for human consumption and others serve as fodder for animals. Some fruit trees are also there from which much fruit such as apples, raisins, almonds, lemons, etc. is obtained. There is also a lot of mineral wealth in the Himalayas some of which has been exploited.

In the Himalayan peaks, caves and valleys there are a large number of shrines and health stations. Thus, the Himalayas are a boon to India granted by God.

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Essay on Himalaya in English.

Watching the tall mountain range of Himalaya covered with the snow and beautify senary anyone gets attracted to the mountain range of Himalaya. There are many tourist places in the Himalayas mountains where many people come to watch the beauty of the mountains. Today we come up with an essay on the Himalayas. So let's get started with the essay.

Image of himalaya used for essay on Himalayas.

The Himalayas.

Himalayan is one of the most beautiful mountain range in the world, the mountains in the Himalayan range are always covered with snow throughout the year. Watching at these mountains it looks like they are the houses made from the snow. Because of tall peaks, the Himalayan mountain is also referred as the kings of all the mountains.

There are many beautify locations present in the Himalayan mountain. To see this location many people all around the world visit India all year round. The Himalayan mountain range is the crown of India and it is situated in the north direction. There are many religious places in the Himalayan mountain and many rivers that originate in this Himalayan mountain range.

The world's tallest mountain Mount Everest is also situated in the Himalayan range, it is so huge that its peak looks like it is touching the sky. Mountaineer from all around the world visit here to climb Mount Everest and to experience its beauty.

Mount Kailash where it is said that Lord Shiv exists is also situated in the Himalayan mountain range it is also a tall mountain but is smaller as compared to Everest but still, till today no mountaineer has successfully climbed it. Like mount Kailash that are many other religious places present like Badrinath, Kedarnath, Haridwar and many more were lots of devotees visit all year round.

To watch the beauty of Himalaya many tourists visit the Himalayan mountains, there are many tourist places famous in Kashmir where beautiful gardens are present. Because of the beauty of Kashmir, it is also called the Nandanvan which means paradise. Darjeeling and Kullu Manali are also very famous tourist spots.

All the major rivers in north India originate from the Himalayan mountains this river includes Ganga, Yamuna, Brahmaputra, and other tributaries. All rivers are considered as very sacred and holy. This river provides water to complete north India. For farmers in north India, these rivers are a gift of God, because of this river here farming is a major occupation and farmers do the excellent quality of farming. Hydroelectricity is also generated with the help of these rivers which lights north India.

Himalaya is not only now for its beauty but is also protects India from the other country as the tall mountains act as a barrier which is almost impossible to cross. This prevents India from attacks from the neighboring countries. And also because of the tall peak of the Himalayan mountain, there is very heavy rainfall in our country which makes rivers flow all year round with fresh water. Without Himalaya, India would have turned into a desert.

In Himalaya there are many medicinal plants found with are only grown in the specific region of Himalaya as the climate is favorable there.

There are so many advantages which the Himalayas gives us, it attracts tourist with its beauty and also protects us and feed us. Himalayas mountain range is the pride of our country.

Friends, what do you think of the Himalayas and its beauty? do tell us by commenting below.

This essay on the Himalayas can be used by students of class 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th for there educational purpose. And this essay can also be used on the topics given below.

  • Himalayan mountains.
  • The beauty of the Himalayas.
  • Himalayas the pride of India.

Friends did you liked this essay on the Himalayas and if you want an essay on any topic then do tell us by commenting below.

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Very nice essay keep it up

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Best Essay on the Great Himalayas

The Himalayas have been one of the dominant features of India. They are the abode of snow. Consequently they have long been known as the Himavan, Himadri, Himachal or the Himalaya. They are the youngest and the highest folded mountains on earth, rising to over 8,000 metres from the sea level, which run in an east-west direction along the entire northern boundary of India for 2500 kms.

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They are 240 to 500 kms. Broad (as in Kashmir) and cover about 500,000 sq. kms. Their areal stretch is between the Indus river and the Brahmaputra, encompassing parts of the Himachal Pradesh, the entire Jammu and Kashmir, the Dehradun district and Kumaon district of Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan; the Darjeeling district of West Bengal; the states of Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

Topography :

The Himalayas mountains are young weak and flexible in their geological structure unlike the rigid and Peninsular block. Consequently, they are still subjected to the interplay of exogenic and en­dogenic forces, resulting in the development of faults, folds, and thurst plains.

These mountains are typically tectonic in origin, having been uplifted during the tertiary times from the bed of the great Midland sea of Tethys, lying between the two ancient landmasses of Angaraland in the north and Gondwana land in the south.

They took about 7 million years to attain their present height. The shape of the Himalayas is like an arc. This may probably be due to the maximum push offered by the Aravallis in the north-west and the Assam ranges in the north-east, when the peninsula drifted towards the north.

Both these ranges too extended arms pushing out to the extremes while the central area sagged in a crescent form. Thus, Himalayan chain got an arcuate trend with the convex side towards the Ganges plain.

The heights of the Himalayas are covered with perpetual snow which feed the valley glaciers. The main crust of the Himalayan ranges rises above the snow-line which varies between 4,500 to 6,000 metres in the west and 4,000 to 5,800 metres in the east. Towards the Far East, the eastern ranges (Khasi, Jaintia, and Naga Hills) are not so high. The Himalayas are not a single, continuous chain of mountains but a series of parallel or converging ranges.

They are intersected by numerous valleys, like that of the Kashmir Valley and the Karewas, the Doon valley (Uttarakhand), the Kangra and Kulu valley (Himachal Pradesh), Kathmandu (in Nepal), Bhagirathi valley (near Gangotri) and Mandakini valley (near Kedarnath). These are fertile and are of great scenic beauty. Extensive plateaus like Ladakh, Cherrapunji and Shillong plateau occur in the Himalayas.

Classification of the Himalayas :

The Himalayas may be studied both breadth wise (i.e. longitudinally) and region-wise.

(A) Longitudinal Section of the Himalayas :

Breadth-wise the Himalayas can be classified into four parts:

(i) The Trans-Himalayas,

(ii) The Greater Himalayas,

(iii) The Lesser Himalayas, and

(iv) The Outer Himalayas.

(i) The Trans-Himalayas or the Tibetan-Himalayas:

This range comprises Karakoram and the Kailash which overlook the sacred Mansarovar Lake. The average width of this region is 40 kms at the eastern and western extremities and 222 kms. In the central part. It is a region of lofty peaks and vast glaciers.

K2 is the highest peak (8,611m). Other important peaks are Gasherbrum I (K5 (8,080 m), Broad Peak (8,047m), Gasherbrum II (8,035 m), Rakaposhi (7,788 m) and Haramosh (7,397m). The largest glaciers are the Hispar and Batura (over 57 km, long) and Biafo and Baltoro (60 km. long).

(ii) The Greater Himalayas:

Also known as the Himadri, Inner or the Central Himalaya, comprise the northern -most ranges rising to an average height of about 6,000 metres with breadth ranging from 120 to 190 kms. The core of these mountains is composed of the Archaean rocks like granite, gneisses and the schists of unknown geological ages. In the alpine zone (4,800 metres and above), rhododendrons trees with crooked and twisted stems, thick shrubs with a variety of beautiful flowers and grass grow.

Some of the highest peaks are situated in this range such as the Mt. Everest (8,848m), (Kanchanjunga (8,598m), Dhaulagiri (8172 m) Nanda Devi (7,817m), Nangaparbat (8,126m), Makalu (8,481m), Manasalu (8,156m), and a host of others. Few passes occur in these ranges though at very high elevation (over 4,500m). They are Sara Lapcha La and Shipki La (in Himachal Pradesh), Thaga La, Niti and Lipu Lekh (in Uttarakhand), Nathula and Jelep La (in Sikkim); and Burzil, Jojila (in Kashmir) and Bomdila (Arunachal Pradesh) etc.

(iii) The Lesser or the Middle Himalayas:

They have an average elevation of about 3,500 to 5,000 metres with an average width of 60 to 80 kms. These consist of the southern spurs’ of Great Himalayas and run parallel to it, extending as far as the outer Shivaliks.

Important ranges included are the Dhauladhar, the Pirpanjal, Nag Tiba, Mahabharat Range and Mussoorie Range. These are also snow-capped and majestic but more friendly to human contacts and less inaccessible to pilgrims, explorers, and saints. Famous hill resorts like Shimla, Chail, Ranikhet, Chakrata, Mussoorie, Nainital, Almora, Darjeeling all lie in them.

They are composed of metamorphic rocks and unfossiliferous sedimentary rocks from Algonkian or Pre-Cambrian to Eocene in age. It differs from Himadri in its more regular and lower elevations. The southern slopes are bare and rugged while the northern ones have thick vegetation. The zone between 1,500 and 2,400 metres is covered by evergreen and oak forests and that between 2,400 and 3,000 metres by coniferous forests.

(iv) The Outer Himalayas or the Shivaliks:

They consist of the foot-hills which run almost from Potwar plateau to the Brahmaputra valley. They are 1,000 to 1,500 metres high with a width ranging from 15 to 50 kms. It is a chain of low-lying hills, entirely made of fluvial deposits like sand, clay and rounded stones, slates, etc.

The region is mostly ill-drained (like that of Tarai), but cool and finely wooded, extending a friendly welcome to human effort and habitation. Valleys in these ranges are known as Doons like Dehradun valley, dhampur and Kotli valleys in Jammu and Kota, Patli and Chaukhamba valley in Uttar Pradesh. Doons are characterized by fault scraps, anticlinal valleys and synclinal ranges.

(B) Transverse or Regional Divisions of Himalayas:

Apart from these longitudinal sub-divisions, the Himalaya exhibit regional characteristics and as such, the following regions have been identified:-

(i) The Kashmir or North-Western Himalayas:

Mostly lies in Jammu and Kashmir covering an area of 3, 50,000 sq. kms. They are about 700 kms. Long and 500 kms. Wide, with an average elevation of 3,000 metres. They have the largest share of snows and glaciers. In the Pirpanjal range exist two passes, Pirpanjal and Banihal. It is breached by the Kishanganga, the Jhelum and the Chenab. Vale of Kashmir lies in this region.

(ii) The Punjab Himalayas:

It stretches north-westwards from the Sutlej for about 570 km. and covers an area of 45,000 sq. km. The northern slopes of this range are bare and rug­ged and enclose plateau with lakes (Mansarovar Rakas Tal, etc). The southern slopes are covered with forest and do not enclose any high plains. Zojila, Rohtang and Bara Lapcha are important passes. It is in this section that Kangra Lahul and Spiti val­leys are situated.

(iii) The Kumaon Himalayas:

It extends from the river Sutlej to the Kali to a distance of about 320 kms. It covers about 38,000 sqs. Km. The highest peak is Nanda Devi followed by others like Kamet, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Nandakot, Gangotri and others. The region is said to have about 360 lakes, some of which have now been completely or partially desiccated but remnants of these still remain in the form of Nainital and Bhimtal lakes.

This section of the Himalaya has great significance for the Hindus due to the Bhagirathi, the Ganga and Jamuna, which have their sources in the zone. Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri, and Jamunotri as household words all over India for their sanctity, antiquity and ancient religious glory.

(iv) The Nepal Himalayas:

These Himalayas are situated between the Kosi valley on the west and the Tista Valley on the east. It is called Sikkim Himalayas in Sikkim and Darjeeling Himalaya in West Bengal and Bhutan Himalaya in Bhutan. It is the longest Himalayan region. It is 800 km long and is the highest Hima­layan region. Its peaks are Mt. Everest, Kanchanjunga, Dhaulagiri, Kakalu and Anapurna.

(v) The Central Himalayas:

It stretches from river Kali to river Tista for about 800 kms. Covering an area about 1, 16, 80 sq. kms. It has the distinction of carrying the highest peaks in the world, Dhaulagiri, Annapurna, Mansalu Gossainthan, Mt. Everest, Makalu and Kanchanjunga, etc. The range is known as the Sikkim Himalaya in Sikkim; Darjeeling Himalaya in West Bwngal; and Bhutan Himalaya in Bhuyan.

(vi) The Assam Himalayas:

It stretches from Tista the Brahmaputra to a distance of about 720 kms. It covers about 67,500 sq. kms. It rises over 800 m above the Brahmaputra Valley. The noted peaks are Pauhunri, and Kulbakangri.

The Naga Hills form the watershed between India and Myanmar (Burma). Saramati is its peak. The Kohima hills have Japuo peak. Manipur Hills encircle the Cachar plain North Cachar hills are over 500 to 1,000 metres high. Mizo hills are the southern part of the north-eastern ranges. Garo hills cover about 8,180 sq. kms. Khasi, Jaintia and Mikir, Aka Dafla Miri, and Abor are other hills in which live the aboriginals of the same name.

Eastern and Western Himalayas Compared :

In the northwest, the Himalayan ranges coalesce with the diversely arranged mountain chains of the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, Kun Lun, Tien Shah, Pamir, Alay and the Trans Alay Ranges which converge on the central promontory of Pamir.

The eastern Himalayas rise rather abruptly from the plains of Bihar and Bengal with the highest peaks of Everest and Kanchenjunga located quite close together. In contrast, the Western Himalayas attain height through a graded series of low ranges.

Here the first stage is set by the sub-Himalayan hills of Jammu and Kashmir, the second by the lesser Himalayan ranges of Pir Panjal and the Dhauladhar and the third by the Great Himalayan, North Kashmir and the Zaskar Ranges. Further northward they are replaced by the Ladakh-Kailash and the Karakoram Ranges.

The four-fold geological division of the Himalayas based on the age of rock formations and their type are:

(i) The Tibetan zone, composed of fossil-bearing sedimentary rocks ranging from Palaeozic to Eocene of the Pleistocene era, lies to the north of the Great Himalayas,

(ii) The central or the Himalayan zone is mainly composed of crystalline and metamorphic rocks,

(iii) The Himalayan Nappe Zone consist of overfolds and thrust faults of a more complex type where large bodies of older rocks have been physically displaced and thrust on the newer ones along the recumbent folds over large areas,

(iv) The outer or the sub-Himalayan zones, corresponding to the Shivaliks, is composed to the sedimentary deposits belonging to upper Tertiary and believed to have been derived from the crowded materials of the main Himalayan ranges themselves.

Passes Through the Mountain Wall :

Though the mountain wall constitutes a formidable physical barrier between the Sub-continent and the rest of Asia, there are some very important passes. These are (from north to south): the Khyber Pass, the Kurram Pass, the Tochi pass, the Gomal Pass and the Bolan Pass.

(i) The Khybar Pass (1,000 m) is the most famous of all. It leads from Peshawar to Kabul. Most of the invaders in the past came through this opening in the Northern Mountain Wall.

(ii) The Gomal Pass: (1,525 m) south of the Khyber Pass there is the Gomal Pass. This pass served as a trade route passing through the districts Wazirstan (now in Pakistan).

(iii) The Bolan Pass: (1,800 m) lies between the Sulaiman and the Kirthar Ranges. It leads from Kandhar to Quetta.

(iv) In the very north are two difficult routes via the Karakoram Pass and the Zozila Pass where there are roads communicating with Srinagar.

(v) The Shipki Pass leads from Punjab to Tibet.

(vi) Bomdila pass: is in Arunachal Pradesh in India.

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