CLIMATIC REGIONS OF INDIA

India is often referred to as a country with tropical monsoon type of climate. The large size of India, its latitudinal extent, the presence of the Himalayas in the north, and the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal in the south have resulted in great variations in the distribution of temperature and precipitation in the subcontinent of India.

A number of attempts have been made by climatologists, geographers and experts of agriculture to divide India into climatic regions. While some of these classifications have been suggested for world climates, others are exclusively applied to Indian conditions. Some of the important climatic, divisions of India were made by the following experts:

1. II.E. Blandford, 1889

2. W. Koppen, 1918, 1931, 1936

3. C.W. Thornthwaite 1931,1933, 1948

4. L.D. Stamp and W.G. Kendrew, 1953

5. S.P. Chatterji, 1953

6. G.T. Trewartha, 1954

7. V.P. Subramanyam, 1956

8. B.L.C.Johnson, 1969

9. K.L Rao, et.al., 1971

10. R.L. Singh, 1971

A systematic study of the climatic divisions of India was attempted for the first time by H.E. Blandford—the first Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department—in 1889, who discovered that all types of climates found in the world are present within the subcontinent of India. This classification based on temperature and rainfall of a few selected stations of India was almost an overgeneralisation. A brief description of some of the important classifications of Indian climate has been given in the following: