Climatic regions of India
Topic: Climate of India and the Monsoon · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 3 "Climates of India"; Class 7, Ch 1 "The Story of Indian Farming"
Meaning
Climatic regions are parts of India that have a broadly similar pattern of temperature and rainfall. NCERT Class 7 groups India's climates into seven types: alpine, temperate, subtropical, arid, tropical wet, semi-arid and tropical. The types change with height, latitude, distance from the sea and the amount of monsoon rain. These regions matter because they decide which crops a farmer can grow and how people live.
Example
The arid type covers the Thar Desert in western Rajasthan, where rain is very low. The alpine type covers the high, snowy Himalaya. The two lie at opposite ends of the country and of the scale of climates.
Don't confuse with
- Koeppen's climatic regions: an older scheme that uses letter codes based on temperature and rainfall. For example, Amw is the west coast south of Goa, As is the Coromandel coast, BWhw is extreme west Rajasthan, Cwg is the Ganga plain and E covers Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The Class 7 scheme uses simple names, not codes.