Southern India

Numerous scattered fires (red dots) were detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite across southern India on January 31, 2003. Fire are especially concentrated in the Nallamala Hills region of the Eastern Ghats along India’s Indian Ocean coast (right). Fires also drape down the Western Ghat Mountains on India’s Arabian Sea coast (left).

South India is the area including the five southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, as well as the three union territories of Andaman and Nicobar islands, Lakshadweep and Puducherry, occupying 19% of India’s area (635,780 km2 or 245,480 sq mi).

Covering the southern part of the peninsular Deccan Plateau, South India is bounded by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse with two mountain ranges–the Western and Eastern Ghats, bordering the plateau heartland. Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Tungabhadra, Periyar and Vaigai rivers are important non-perennial sources of water. Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi, Trivandrum, Visakhapatnam, Madurai, Mysuru, Mangalore and Kozhikode are the largest urban areas.

Therefore Southern India has a wide range of cities.

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC