Explore the complete UPSC Geography syllabus with mindmaps, including topics like climate, agriculture, drainage systems, and more for effective UPSC preparation.

Natural Vegetation & Wildlife

• Characteristics, importance, comparison & significance.
• Classification of natural vegetation in India.
• Mangroves Vegetation in India.
• Distribution of Forest Area.
• Factors of Forest Development.
• Extent of Forest Cover.
• Classification of Forest in India.
• Forest Problems in India.
• Rainfall distribution.
• Biosphere reserves, national parks, etc.
• Red-listed species.

Minerals & Industries

• Mineral distribution, industrial policies, mining regions, and location.
• Mineral resource types: metallic minerals & non-metallic minerals.
• Distribution, production, and international trade of metallic minerals: ferrous metals (iron ore).
• Non-metallic minerals – sulphur, phosphates, cement.

Drainage Systems (Indian Rivers)

• Characteristics, comparison & significance.
• River basins.
• Regional development and planning.
• Hydropower projects and major dams.
• Interlinking of rivers.
• Classification of drainage.
• Himalayan drainage.
• Indus river system.
• Indus drainage system.
• Ganga river system.
• Brahmaputra river system.
• Peninsular river system.
• East flowing rivers.
• West flowing rivers.
• Main rivers and their tributaries.
• Famous cities on river banks.

The Basic Idea about India

• Location, latitude, longitude, time zone, local and standard time, and the International Date Line, calendar, etc.
• Neighbors of India.
• Important straits in India.
• Indian states and their position.
• States of India with their international boundaries.
• Physical features of India.
• Physiographic sub-units – Himalayans, classification of the Himalayan system, regional division of the Himalayas.
• Great plains of India and their physiographic division – geological formation, physiographic divisions, climate, vegetation, soil, biodiversity, significance.
• Peninsular plateau – geological formation, central highlands, Deccan plateau, Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats.
• Thar Desert – Indian desert.
• Coastal plain.
• The islands.
• Mountain system.

Climate in India

• Factors influencing the climate of India.
• Monsoon mechanism.
• Classical theory.
• Jet stream theory.
• Modern theory.
• Air mass theory.
• Seasonal rhythm.
• Koppen’s climatic classification.
• EL Nino and La Nina.
• Indian droughts.
• Floods and their distribution in India.

Agriculture & Allied Activities

• Characteristics & problems.
• Land utilization.
• Agricultural revolution in India.
• Subsistence agriculture.
• Primitive subsistence agriculture.
• Intensive subsistence agriculture.
• Plantation agriculture.
• Mediterranean agriculture.
• Viticulture in India.
• Market gardening and horticulture – truck farming.
• Cooperative farming.
• Collective farming.
• Green revolution.
• Classification of soil in India.
• Irrigation.
• Land reforms.
• Animal husbandry.
• Major crops in India.
• Government schemes.

Economic Infrastructure

• Power and energy sector.
• Distribution of potential hydro-power.
• Hydro-electric power generation in India.
• Conventional and non-conventional sources of energy.
• Energy conservation.
• Natural energy resources.
• General trends of energy production and consumption.
• Reserves and sources of energy.
• Classification of energy.
• Production of conventional energy.

Transportation

• Relative importance of means of transport: railways, roads, pipeline, oceans, air transport.

World Geography

• Regional grouping of countries of the world.
• Continents, countries, and cities.
• Continents and important cities of the world.
• Important cities situated on the banks of rivers.
• Economic classification of countries of the world.
• Regional geography of developed countries.
• Population problems of developed countries.
• Regional geography of developing countries.
• Population problems of developing countries.
• Regional geography of South Asia.
• Events related to current affairs.
• Places in news.

Human Geography

• Demographics.
• Concept of human resources.
• Landforms, climate, soils.
• Economic factors, minerals, urbanisation.
• Factors affecting the distribution of population.
• Geographical factors, availability of water, industrialisation, socio-cultural factors.
• Census- 2011 of India.
• Highest & lowest population.
• Literacy.
• Sex-ratio.
• Human development – growth vs development.
• Economic activities – tertiary, quaternary, quinary.
• Settlements – urban and rural.
• Issues of urbanization in India.
• Current events.

Physical Geography

• Climatic zones of the world.
• Koppen’s classification of climatic zones.
• The hot, wet equatorial climate.
• The tropical monsoon and tropical marine climates.
• The Savanna or Sudan climate.
• The hot desert and mid-latitude desert climates.
• The warm temperate western margin climate.
• The temperate continental.
• The warm temperate eastern margin.
• The cool temperate western margin.
• The cool temperate continental climate.
• The cool temperate eastern margin climate.
• The Arctic or polar climate.
• Interior structure of the Earth: crust, mantle, core.
• Sources of information – direct and indirect.
• Earthquake waves.
• Volcanoes.
• Theories – Suess theory.

The Basic Idea about Earth

• Universe – theories of development of universe.
• Galaxy – star and planet formation.
• Solar system – moon, asteroid, meteor, Kupier belt, comets, dwarf planets.
• Earth evolution – geological history of earth, evolution of the earth layered structure – lithosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere.

Geomorphology

• Geology and rock system.
• Major elements of the Earth’s crust.
• Earth’s surface – exogenic forces and endogenic forces.
• Mass movements of landforms, erosion & deposits.
• Erosional landforms – pediments, pediplains, playas, deflation hollows and caves.
• Depositional landforms – barchans, seif, parabolic, transverse.
• Ground water (Karst topography) – permeable rocks, percolation, bedding plains.

Climatology

• Atmosphere.
• Inversion of temperature.
• Winds and pressure belts.
• Atmospheric circulation and weather systems.
• Insolation, heat budget of the Earth, heat balance.
• Heating and cooling of atmosphere – conduction, convection, and advection.
• Air mass, fronts, cyclones, and jet stream.
• Thunderstorms.

Oceanography

• Hydrosphere.
• Water on the surface of the Earth.
• Hydrological cycle – component, processes.
• Ocean currents, ocean waves.
• Types of ocean currents of the world – warm and cold currents.

Mapping

• Important places in news, biosphere reserves, climatic zones, soils, grasslands, etc.