Districts of West Bengal - Geography

Geography

West Bengal is bordered by three countries: Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh; and five Indian states: Sikkim, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh, Orissa, and Assam. Sikkim and Bhutan are located at the north of the state, Nepal at the northwest, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattishgarh at the west, Orissa at the southwest, the Bay of Bengal at the south, and Bangladesh and Assam are at the east. West Bengal is the only state of India that has both the Himalayas in the north and the Bay of Bengal at the south. In between them, the river Ganges enters the state from west, before it branches off into its main distributaries: the Hooghly River, which flows southwards to reach the Bay of Bengal, and the Padma River, which flows eastwards into Bangladesh.

The districts that are located at the north of the Ganges—Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Malda, North Dinajpur and South Dinajpur—are often referred to collectively as North Bengal. Geographically, this area is divided into the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region, the Terai and Doors region, and the North Bengal plains. The Siliguri Corridor, also known as Chicken's Neck, which connects North-East India with rest of the India, lies in this region. The Indo-Bangladesh enclaves are either enclaves or exclaves of the Cooch Behar district or the Jalpaiguri district.

The districts on the south of the Ganges—Bankura, Bardhaman, Birbhum, Purulia, Murshidabad, Nadia, West Midnapore, East Midnapore, Hooghly, Howrah, Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas—constitute a variety of geographical regions such as the Rarh region, the Western plateau and high lands, the coastal plains, the Sunderbans and the Ganges Delta. Kolkata, the capital of the state, constitutes the Kolkata district.

The uninhabited South Talpatti Island, which surfaced in the Bay of Bengal in 1970s near the Indo-Bangladesh border, is claimed by both India and Bangladesh.