Cretaceous lava still roofs India's southern plateau
The Deccan Plateau covers about 422,000 square kilometres of peninsular India, averaging roughly 600 metres high between the Western and Eastern Ghats. Its northwest traps are stacked basalt from eruptions at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary some sixty-six million years ago.
Bounded north by the Satpura and Vindhya ranges and south toward Tamil Nadu's fringe, the plateau fills most inland Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Telangana, with slices of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Subdivisions include Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Rayalaseema–Telangana plateaus. Precambrian granite and Gondwana sediments underlie the volcanic lids. Gentle west-to-east tilt sends Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri toward the Bay of Bengal; Western Ghats rain shadows leave the interior semi-arid compared with the coasts.
"Deccan" anglicises Prakrit dakkhaṇa from Sanskrit dakṣiṇa, "south." Ash mounds dated to about 8000 BCE mark Neolithic presence; iron spreads by 1000 BCE without a clear preceding Bronze Age. From at least the first century BCE, Silk Road–linked trade touched Mediterranean and East Asian markets. Dynasties from Satavahanas and Chalukyas to Cholas, Hoysalas, and Kakatiyas ruled stretches; later Vijayanagara, Bahmani and Deccan sultanates, Mysore, Marathas, and the Nizam layered over the same uplands before British presidencies and 1947 independence.
Linguistic reorganisation in the 1950s redrew states; Telangana split from Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Trap basalts can exceed two kilometres in thickness—a deep-time scar that still shapes soils, aquifers, and black-cotton farmland. The eruption ranks as the second largest ever recorded on land, and its deposits spread over more than 500,000 square kilometres. The region also yields iron ore, coal and mica, with large uranium finds made this century. Summers in April and May are dry and hot, often passing 40 °C.
Source: Deccan Plateau
