WESTERN GHATS REGIONS

The Western Ghats, also called as Sahyadris, is a 1600 km long escarpment that runs parallel to the southwestern coast of Peninsular India. The average elevation of this mountain range is about 1200 m. Diverse topography and interactions between the relief with the summer monsoon winds have resulted in wide array of habitats across the Ghats. The Western Ghats represents best preserved non-equatorial tropical forests ranging from wet evergreen to dry evergreen, moist deciduous and dry deciduous forests, and sprawling high altitude grasslands. The Ghats is considered as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world due high rate of endemism in both plants and animals.

The Western Ghats, including the West Coast, is comes under four major geographical regions (see map below). These regions are further hierarchically divided into 8 first-order regions, 16 second-order regions and 30 third-order regions (Singh R.L. 1971. India: A Regional Geography. National Geographical Society of India, Varnasi. pp. 992)