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Review key 7 Important Features of the Deccan Plateau exam facts and rate your mastery to track revision.
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#1
The Deccan Plateau is an inverted triangular tableland covering over 500,000 square kilometers across central and southern India.
#2
The northern boundary of the plateau is defined by the Satpura, Vindhya, Mahadeo, and Maikal mountain ranges.
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Its western margin is bounded by the continuous Western Ghats, while its eastern margin is defined by the discontinuous Eastern Ghats.
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The plateau is primarily composed of the Deccan Traps, an extensive volcanic flood basalt formation created around 66 million years ago during the late Cretaceous period.
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The volcanic eruptions were caused by the Indian plate passing over the RĂ©union volcanic hotspot as it drifted northward toward the Eurasian plate.
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The basaltic lava flows accumulated in horizontal layers reaching depths of over 2,000 meters in western Maharashtra, forming characteristic step-like terraces.
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Weathering of the basaltic lava produced Regur (Black Cotton Soil), which is exceptionally rich in iron, calcium, magnesium, and aluminum carbonates.
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Black cotton soil exhibits high moisture-retention capacity and forms deep cracks during dry spells, which aerates the soil in a process called "self-ploughing."
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The general slope of the Deccan Plateau is from west to east, falling from an altitude of around 1,000 meters in the west to 500 meters in the east.
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This regional gradient directs the drainage of major peninsular rivers—Godavari, Krishna, and Cauvery—toward the Bay of Bengal.
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The Godavari River, often called the "Dakshin Ganga," is the longest river of the Deccan Plateau, originating at Trimbakeshwar near Nashik.
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Only two major rivers in the northern peninsular margin—the Narmada and the Tapti—flow westward through fault-bound rift valleys into the Arabian Sea.
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Geologically, the Deccan Plateau is one of the oldest and most rigid crustal blocks on Earth, having remained largely free from major tectonic folding since the Precambrian era.
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Southern and eastern sections of the plateau reveal ancient Archean granites, gneisses, and Dharwar-system rocks rather than volcanic basalts.
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The plateau is divided into major sub-regions including the Maharashtra Plateau, Karnataka (Mysore) Plateau, and Telangana Plateau.
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The Karnataka Plateau is further sub-divided into the elevated Malnad hilly tract and the rolling eastern plains known as the Maidan.
#17
Rich mineral deposits are found along the margins of the plateau, including high-grade iron ore in Kudremukh and Bellary, gold in Kolar (historically), and manganese.
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Because it lies in the rain shadow of the Western Ghats, the interior Deccan Plateau receives limited rainfall (500 mm to 900 mm annually), resulting in a semi-arid climate.
#19
The natural vegetation consists predominantly of dry deciduous forests and thorny scrublands dominated by Acacia, teak, and bamboo species.
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Major agro-climatic crops cultivated across the plateau include cotton, sugarcane, pulses, jowar, bajra, soybean, and groundnut.
#21
The Nilgiri Hills in Tamil Nadu serve as the ecological and geographic nexus where the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats converge.
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Major river valleys of the plateau feature deep gorges and extensive deltaic plains along the eastern seaboard where rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal.
Subject Specialist Commentary
Analytical perspective & practical exam advice from the Master10 academic board
The Deccan Plateau is a vast, triangular tableland covering over half a million square kilometres south of the Narmada River. A defining feature is the Deccan Traps, formed around sixty-six million years ago when the drifting Indian plate passed over the volcanic RĂ©union hotspot. Successive layers of cooling basaltic lava created massive step-like terraces across western Maharashtra. Over millions of years, weathering broke this volcanic rock into moisture-retaining black cotton soil (regur), renowned for its fertility and self-ploughing nature.
For competitive exams like UPSC and State PSCs, understanding regional slopes and river drainage is essential. Because the plateau tilts gently from west to east, major rivers like the Godavari, Krishna, and Cauvery flow eastward into the Bay of Bengal. A regular prelims trap involves west-flowing rivers: only the Narmada and Tapti flow westward into the Arabian Sea because they occupy tectonic rift valleys rather than following plateau slope. In physical geography revision, note that Western and Eastern Ghats converge at the Nilgiri Hills.
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