The Hills of India :India

India has seven principal mountain ranges. Among these, pride of place belongs naturally to the Himalayas the abode of the snows. The Himalayas are the world’s youngest and largest east-west mountain chain and stretch some 2,500 kilometres (1,600 miles) in an arc across the top of tbe Indian subcontinent. This impressive natural frontier encompasses an immense half a million square kilometres (200,000 square miles) and gives India the largest area under snow and glacier outside the Polar Regions. The mountains were formed between 50 and 60 million years ago. The most recently formed are the lower foothills known as the Shivaliks which consist of sedimentary rock very susceptible to erosion. Beyond the Shivaliks lie the Himaehal, the Lesser Himalayas. It is in these ranges that the most celebrated hill stations are found: Shimla, Dalhousie, Mussoorie, Nainital and Darjeeling. Like most northern hill stations they are situated between 1,230 metres and 2,460 metres (4-8,000 feet) and the peaks on which they stand would no doubt have qualified as mountains rather than mere hills were it not for the Himadri, the Greai Himalayas, beyond. In the Himadri are Everest and Annapurna, which lie within Nepal, and Kanchenjunga, Nanga Parbat and Nanda Devi, which fall within the boundaries of India. From the Himalayas flow the great rivers of the Punjab, as well as the holiest river of all, the Ganga or Ganges.

The Himalayas are the highest mountain range in the world but the lesser known Aravalli is one of the oldest. Formed over 600 million years ago, its once snow-capped peaks have been reduced to a line of scrub-covered hills running between Delhi and Gujarat to the southwest. In some places they have been completely eroded but they can still boast one hill station, Mount Abu, and one peak, Guru Shikhar, over 1,700 metres (6,000 feet) high.