Western Coastal Plains

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The Western Coastal Plains is a strip of coastal plain 50 kilometres (31 mi) in width between the west coast of India and the Western Ghats hills, which starts near the south of the Tapi River. The plains are located between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea. The plains begin at Gujarat in the north and end at Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, the southern tip of peninsular India. It includes the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and a small part of Tamil Nadu. The region consists of three sections: the northern part of the coast is called the Konkan (Mumbai to Goa), the central stretch is called the Kanara or the "Karavali", while the southern stretch is referred to as the Malabar Coast. On its northern side there are two gulfs: the Gulf of Khambat and the Gulf of Kutch. The rivers along the coast form estuaries and provide conditions ideal for pisciculture. Because of the presence of less coastal land in this part, it will be affected more by the global warming.

The northern portion of the west coast is called Konkan and the southern portion Malabar. The south Malabar or Kerala coast is broken and there are some lagoons. The north Malabar Coast is known as the Karnataka coast. Here, the Sharavati River, before entering the plains, descends down a 275 m high cliff and forms the Gersoppa Falls.

The Western Coastal Plains extend 1,500 km from Cape Comorin (Tamil Nadu) in the south to Surat (Gujarat) in north, the width ranging from 10 to 25 km from north to south, the Gujarat Plains the Konkan plains (Daman to Goa, 500 km), the Karnataka coastal plains (225 km south from Goa), and the Kerala-Tamil nadu coastal plains from Cannanore to Cape Comorin, 500 km make up the west coastal plains. The West Continental shelf is widest (350 km) off the coast of Bombay where the oil-rich Bombay High has become famous .

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India is situated north of the equator between 8°4' north to 37°6' north latitude and 68°7' east to 97°25' east longitude. It is the seventh-largest country in the world, with a total area of 3,287,263 square kilometres (1,269,219 sq mi). India measures 3,214 km (1,997 mi) from north to south and 2,933 km (1,822 mi) from east to west. It has a land frontier of 15,200 km (9,445 mi) and a coastline of 7,516.6 km (4,671 mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Ghats</span> Mountain range along the western coast of India

The Western Ghats, also known as the Sahyadri mountain range, is a mountain range that covers an area of 160,000 km2 (62,000 sq mi) in a stretch of 1,600 km (990 mi) parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, traversing the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the 36 biodiversity hotspots in the world. It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India. It contains a very large proportion of the country's flora and fauna, many of which are endemic to this region. The Western Ghats are older than the Himalayas. They influence Indian monsoon weather patterns by intercepting the rain-laden monsoon winds that sweep in from the south-west during late summer. The range runs north to south along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau and separates the plateau from a narrow coastal plain called the Western Coastal Plains along the Arabian Sea. A total of 39 areas in the Western Ghats, including national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests, were designated as world heritage sites in 2012 – twenty of them in Kerala, ten in Karnataka, six in Tamil Nadu and four in Maharashtra.

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