India’s Extreme Points

In 2004, one of India’s four extreme points sank nearly 4 metres into the sea. The country’s borders on a map don’t always match what’s really there.

Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanniyakumari, Tamil Nadu — India’s southernmost mainland point. Photo: Infocaster, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

India’s extreme points: Indira Col in the north, Kibithu in the east, the Sir Creek area in the west, and Kanniyakumari (mainland) and Indira Point, Great Nicobar (overall), in the south.

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Indian Geography · IndGeo0060

India’s Four Extreme Points

North

Indira Col

Karakoram Range, ~5,764 m, near Siachen

South

Indira Point

Great Nicobar; partly submerged in 2004

East

Kibithu

Arunachal Pradesh, near India-China-Myanmar tri-junction

West

Guhar Moti

Kutch, Gujarat, near disputed Sir Creek

Not the point you’d guess

Kanyakumari is the mainland’s southern tip, but India’s real southernmost point, Indira Point, lies far out in the Nicobar Islands — and it partly sank into the sea during the 2004 tsunami.

📑 Contents

1Must Know
2Good to Know
3Test Yourself
4Great to Know
5Previous Year Questions

✊ Must Know

India’s Four Extreme Points

India’s northernmost point is Indira Col, a mountain pass in the Karakoram Range, near the Siachen Glacier.
India’s southernmost point is Indira Point, on Great Nicobar Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
India’s easternmost point is Kibithu, in the Anjaw district of Arunachal Pradesh.
India’s westernmost point is Guhar Moti, in the Kutch region of Gujarat.
These four locations mark the actual outer edges of India’s territory, not just symbolic or commonly cited landmarks.

📘 Good to Know

Elevation, Renaming, and Strategic Edges

Indira Col sits at an elevation of about 5,764 metres, making it a high-altitude extreme point.
Indira Point was earlier called Pygmalion Point. It was renamed after Indira Gandhi on 10 October 1985.
Kanyakumari is often called India’s “southernmost point,” but that’s only true for the mainland. Indira Point, further south in the islands, is the country’s actual southernmost point.
Kibithu sits near the tri-junction of India, China, and Myanmar, giving it real strategic significance beyond its geographic record.
Guhar Moti lies close to the disputed Sir Creek area, near the India-Pakistan boundary in the Rann of Kutch region.

Test Yourself

🌟 Great to Know

How the 2004 Tsunami Reshaped India’s Southern Edge

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami caused the land around Indira Point to subside by about 4.25 metres.
This subsidence submerged much of the settlement there. The base of its 23-metre lighthouse now sits underwater.
Sixteen to twenty families living near the lighthouse, along with four scientists studying leatherback sea turtles, died in the disaster.
The Indira Point Lighthouse, commissioned in 1972, has stood unmanned since the tsunami. It remains a lasting physical marker of how sharply that event reshaped India’s southern edge.

📝 Previous Year Questions

India’s Easternmost and Westernmost States

East Arunachal Pradesh is India’s easternmost state. Kibithu, in its Anjaw district, sees India’s first sunrise.
West Gujarat is India’s westernmost state. Its Kutch district holds the country’s westernmost point, near the Sir Creek area.
Not Assam or Rajasthan Assam and Rajasthan are common wrong-pair distractors here — neither marks either true extreme.
Answer: (d) Arunachal Pradesh and Gujarat.
View this question on the full 2015 paper →