Eastern Ghats in the context of "Dandaka Forest"

Tamil Nadu is the southernmost state of India. The tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population, Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, who speak the Tamil language—the state's official language and the first to be recognised as a classical language in India. The capital and largest city is Chennai.

Located on the south-eastern coast of the Indian peninsula, Tamil Nadu is straddled by the Western Ghats and Deccan Plateau in the west, the Eastern Ghats in the north, the Eastern Coastal Plains lining the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait to the south-east, the Laccadive Sea at the southern cape of the peninsula, with the river Kaveri bisecting the state. Politically, Tamil Nadu is bound by the Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, and encloses a part of the union territory of Puducherry. It shares an international maritime border with the Northern Province of Sri Lanka at Pamban Island.

South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area (635,780 km or 245,480 sq mi) and 20% of India's population. It is bound by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse, with two mountain ranges, the Western and Eastern Ghats, bordering the plateau heartland. The Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Penna, Tungabhadra and Vaigai rivers are important non-perennial sources of water. Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Kochi are the largest urban areas in the region.

The majority of the people in South India speak at least one of the four major Dravidian languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. During its history, a number of dynastic kingdoms ruled over parts of South India, and shaped the culture in those regions. Major dynasties that were established in South India include the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas, Pallavas, Satavahanas, Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Rashtrakutas and Vijayanagara. European countries entered India through Kerala and the region was colonized by Britain, Portugal and France.

The Deccan Plateau (/ˈdɛkən/ DEK-ən ) is a geographic formation that extends over an area of 422,000 km (163,000 sq mi) on the southern part of the Indian peninsula. It stretches from the Satpura and Vindhya Ranges in the north to the northern fringes of Tamil Nadu in the south. It is bound by the mountain ranges of the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats on the sides, which separate the region from the Western and Eastern Coastal Plains respectively. It covers most of the Indian States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh excluding the coastal regions, and minor portions of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The plateau is marked by rocky terrain with an average elevation of about 600 m (2,000 ft). It is subdivided into Maharashtra Plateau, Karnataka Plateau, and Rayalaseema and Telangana Plateau. The Deccan Traps in the northwest were formed by multiple layers of igneous rock deposited by basaltic lava flows following a massive volcanic eruption occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period (66 mya). The underlying bed consists of granite and sedimentary rocks formed during the Precambrian era and the formation of Gondwana.

The Western Ghats, also known as the Sahyadri, is a mountain range that stretches 1,600 km (990 mi) along the western coast of the Indian peninsula. Covering an area of 160,000 km (62,000 sq mi), it traverses the Indian states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. The range forms an almost continuous chain of mountains along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau, from the Tapti River to Swamithoppe in Kanyakumari district at the southern tip of the Indian peninsula. The Western Ghats meet with the Eastern Ghats at Nilgiris before continuing south.

Geologic evidence indicates that the mountains were formed during the break-up of the supercontinent of Gondwana. The mountains arose along the west coast of India somewhere in the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods when India separated from the African continent. The mountains can be roughly divided into three parts: the northern section with an elevation ranging from 900–1,500 m (3,000–4,900 ft), the middle section starting south of Goa with a lower elevation of less than 900 m (3,000 ft), and the southern section where the altitude rises again. The Western Ghats have several peaks that rise above 2,000 m (6,600 ft), with Anamudi (2,695 m (8,842 ft)) being the highest peak. The average elevation is around 1,200 m (3,900 ft).

East India is a region consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odishaand West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The states of Bihar and West Bengal lie on the Indo-Gangetic plain. Jharkhand is situated on the Chota Nagpur Plateau. Odisha lies on the Eastern Ghats and the Deccan Plateau. West Bengal's capital Kolkata is the largest city of this region. The Kolkata Metropolitan Area is the country's third largest metropolitan region. The region is bounded by Bhutan, Nepal and the state of Sikkim in the north, the states of Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on the west, the state of Andhra Pradesh in the south and the country of Bangladesh in the east. It is also bounded by the Bay of Bengal in the south-east. It is connected to the Seven Sister States of Northeast India by the narrow Siliguri Corridor in the north east of West Bengal. East India has the fourth-largest gross domestic product of all Indian regions.

Pterocarpus santalinus, with the common names red sanders, red saunders, Yerra Chandanam, Chenchandanam, red sandalwood, Rakta Chandana, and rakto chandon, is a species of Pterocarpus endemic to the southern Eastern Ghats mountain range of South India. This tree is valued for the rich red colour of its wood, and in recent years there has been a marked uptick in the use of red sandalwood as a component of incense, especially in the west. The tree is not to be confused with the aromatic Santalum sandalwood trees that grow natively in Southern India.