South India sits on lava laid down as the dinosaurs died out
Much of South India's high plateau rests on volcanic basalt from the Deccan Traps, eruptions between 67 and 66 million years ago at the close of the Cretaceous. Layer upon layer of lava left flat-topped highlands that tilt gently eastward, which is why the region's great rivers rise in the west and empty into the Bay of Bengal.
The region is a downward-pointing triangle of land framed by the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, meeting at Kanyakumari. Five states and two union territories cover about 19 percent of India's area and hold a fifth of its population. The Western and Eastern Ghats hem in the Deccan, joining at the Nilgiris, and Anaimudi, at 2,695 metres, is the highest point. The word Deccan itself comes from a Sanskrit root meaning south.
People have lived here a long time. Ash mounds from Neolithic cultures have been carbon dated to 8000 BCE, and iron working spread around 1000 BCE, apparently without a full Bronze Age beforehand. During the Sangam period the coast traded with Romans, Greeks, Arabs and Chinese along routes linking the Mediterranean to East Asia. Dynasties including the Cholas, Pandyas, Pallavas and Chalukyas rose and fell, and Vijayanagara in the 15th century was the last kingdom to rule the entire south.
Europeans arrived in the 15th century, and by the mid-18th century France and Britain were fighting for control. British dominance followed Tipu Sultan's defeat in 1799, leaving French Pondichéry as an exception. The south was active in the independence movement: 22 of the 72 delegates at the first Indian National Congress in 1885 came from the region. After 1956, states were redrawn along language lines, which is how Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala took shape; Telangana split from Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
Most people speak Telugu, Tamil, Kannada or Malayalam. The southern states have grown faster than the national average for three decades, recorded literacy of about 76 percent in 2011, and have a fertility rate of 1.9, the lowest of any Indian region. Monsoons bring more than 2,000 millimetres of rain a year to the Malabar coast, while summer heat inland can top 50 °C.
Source: South India
