Indo-Gangetic Plain

The Indo-Gangetic Plain also known as The North Indian River Plain is a large and fertile plain encompassing most of northern and eastern India, the most populous parts of Pakistan, parts of southern Nepal and virtually all of Bangladesh. The region is named after the Indus and the Ganges, the twin river systems that drain it.

The plain's population density is very high due to the fertile soil for farming.

The plains support one of the most populous areas on Earth, being home to nearly 1 billion people (or around 1/7 of the world's population) on 700,000 km² (270,000 mile²). Among the largest cities of the Indo-Gangetic plain are Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Lahore, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Kolkata, Guwahati and Dhaka. In this region, it is hard to define where one megalopolis begins and one ends.

The Indo-Gangetic plain is bound on the north by the abruptly rising Himalayas, which feed its numerous rivers and are the source of the fertile alluvium deposited across the region by the two river systems. The southern edge of the plain is marked by the Vindhya- and Satpura Range, and the Chota Nagpur Plateau. On the west rises the Iranian Plateau.