Many describe India as a continent. And not surprisingly, for the county spans 3.29 million-sq km. In the north are China, Nepal and Bhutan, to the northwest, Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the east, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar separate the county's slender southern tip from the island-state of Sri Lanka.

Stretching 2,400 km across its entire northern boundary, from the Pamir not in the northwest to the Brahmaputra valley in the east, is the world's youngest (60 million years old) mountain range the Himalayas, which has the world's highest peak Mt Everest.

Far older is the stable mass of pre-Cambrian rock the Decant plateau, which occupies a southern position in the peninsula. The Arrival range, in its north, as also the Western and Eastern Ghats are remnants of this formation. The eastern edge drained by the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri rivers, break the Eastern Ghats into low hills. The Western Ghats are steeeper and swift-flowing river form backwaters and lagoons along the Kerala coast. Kanyakumari is the southernmost tip of India.

Between the Himalayas and the Decant plateau is the fertile Indo-Gangetic plain. In the east, the Brahmaputra River joins the Ganga in a combined delta, the largest in the world and known for its rich, mangrove forests. Nestled in the Bay of Bengal in the east, are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, while in the Arabian Sea in the west, coral atoll form the Lakshadweep islands.

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