Himalayas

The Himalayas (from Sanskrit words hima, "snow," and alaya, "abode"), the loftiest mountain system in the world, form the northern limit of India. That great, geologically young mountain arc is about 1,550 miles (2,500 km) long, stretching from the peak of Nanga Parbat (26,660 feet [8,126 metres]) in the Pakistani administered portion of the Kashmir region to the Namcha Barwa peak in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Between those extremes the mountains fall across India, southern Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. The width of the system varies between 125 and 250 miles (200 and 400 km).

The great ranges of central Asia, including the Himalayas, contain the 3rd largest deposit of ice and snow in the world, after Anterctica and the Arctic. The Himalayas include the highest mountains in the world, with more than 110 peaks rising to elevations of 24,000 feet (7,300 metres) or more above sea level. In India it extends in the east from the borders of Myanmar to where the Indus divides it from the Hindukush and Karakoran ranges, covering a distance of about 2500 km. The Himalayas consist of three parallel ranges, the Greater Himalayas known as the Himadri, the Lesser Himalayas called the Himachal, and the Shivalik hills, which comprise the foothills.The Himalayas ranges can be grouped into four parallel longitudinal mountain belts varying width, each having distinct physiographic features and its own geologic history. They are designated, from south to north, The Himalayas range encompasses about 15,000 glaciers, which store about 12,000 km3 (2,900 cu mi) of fresh water. Its glaciers include the Gangotri and Yamunotri (Uttarakhand) and Kumbu glaciers (Mount Everest region), Langtang glacier (Langtang region) and Zemu (Sikkim).

The Himalayas cover approximately 75% of Nepal. The Outer Himalayas comprise flat-floored structural valleys and the Siwalik Range, the Siwaliks run for the entire length of the Himalayas, with a maximum width of 62 miles(100 km) in the northern Indian states of Himachal Pradesh. The main Siwalik Range has steeper southern slopes facing the Indian plains and descends gently northward to flat-floored basins, The best known of those is the Dehra Dun, in southern Uttarakhand state, just north of the border with northwestern Uttar Pradesh state. The major rivers of source in the Himalayas, namely the Ganga, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Sutlej, the Alaknanda and the Bhagirathi. It is beleived that the Himalayas were uplifted so slowly that the rivers had no difficulty in continuing to flow through their channels and, with the rise of the Himalayas, acquired an even greater momentum, which enabled them to cut their valleys more rapidly. The elevation of the Himalayas and the deepening of the valleys thus proceeded simultaneously. As a result, the mountain ranges emerged with a completely developed river system cut into deep transverse gorges that range in depth from 5,000 to 16,000 feet (1,500 to 5,000 metres) and in width from 6 to 30 miles (10 to 50 km). These rivers are the lifeline of India, providing water to millions of people and irrigating thousands of hectares of land.

The earlier origin of the drainage system explains the peculiarity that the major rivers drain not only the southern slopes of the Great Himalayas but, to a large extent, its norther slopes as well, the water divide being north of the crest line. The north facing slopes generally have a fairly thick soil cover, supporting dense forests at lower elevations and grasses higher up. The Himalayas, as a greate climatic divide affecting large systems of air and water circulation, help determine meteorological conditions in the Indian subcontinent to the south and in the Central Asian highlands to the north. The average annual rainfall on the south slopes varies between 60 inches (1,530 mm) at Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, and Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, in the Western Himalayas and 120 inches at Darjiling, West Bengal state, in the eastern Himalayas.

The Himalayas Largest peaks include Mount Everest at a height of 8848 metres is the highest peak followed by the Kanchanjunga at 8598 metre. The highest mountian wholly in India is the Nandadevi, at height of a little less than 8000 metre. Millions of years ago the Indain subcotinent was separated from the mainland by a large sea known as the Tethys. During the movement of the earth's crust, known as the Continental Drift, it began moving northwards towards the mainland. As it hit the Asian continent the bed of the Tethy sea was pushed upwards and the Himalayas emerged. The evidence of this is seen in the fossils of sea animals found at 5000 feet and above.

Due to the changes in temperature as one climbs higher, there is a diverse range of flora and fauna making it a virtual heaven for naturalists. Plants and animals of the tropics are found up to 1000 m. from there to about 3000 . are the temperate region species and, above that comes the region of the Alpines. Himalayas vegetation can be broadly classified into four types, tropical, subtropical, temperate, and alpine, each of which prevails in a zone ddetermined mainly by elevation and precipitation. Local differences in relief and climate, as well as exposure to sunlight and wind, cause considerable variation in the species present within each zone. Tropical evergreen rainforest is confined to the humid foothills of the eastern and central Himalayas.

The fauna of the eastern Himalayas is similar to that of the southern Chinese and Southeast Asian region. Many of those species are primarily found in tropical forests and are only secondarily adapted to the subtropical, mountain, and temperate conditions prevailing at higher elevations and in the drier western areas. The animal life of the western himalayas.

Of the four principle language families in the Indian subcontinent, Indo-European, Tibeto-Burman, Austroasiastic, and Dravidian.