The Purvanchal Hills

Somewhere near the Brahmaputra, the Himalaya makes a hairpin turn and heads south. What follows that turn is a whole separate hill system, guarding India’s border with Myanmar.

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Indian Geography · IndGeo0038

The Purvanchal Hills: Where the Himalaya Turns

Patkai Hills

Naga Hills

Manipur Hills

Mizo Hills

Dihang Gorge

Where the Himalaya bends south

Saramati

Highest peak, ~3,826 m

6 states

AR, NL, MN, MZ, TR, +Assam

Same mountains, new direction

The Purvanchal formed from the same tectonic collision that built the main Himalaya — it just curves south at the Eastern Syntaxial Bend, guarding India’s border with Myanmar.

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Must Know

• The Purvanchal Hills form the easternmost extension of the Himalaya, in India’s northeast.
• They begin where the Himalaya bends sharply south near the Dihang Gorge, a point called the Eastern Syntaxial Bend.
• The range runs along India’s border with Myanmar, and touches Bangladesh and China as well.
• Purvanchal spans Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and parts of Assam.
• Its main components are the Patkai Hills, Naga Hills, Manipur Hills, and Mizo Hills.

Good to Know

• The Patkai Hills sit on the Arunachal Pradesh-Myanmar border, at the range’s northern end.
• The Manipur Hills form an oval ring around the central Imphal Valley, with elevations between about 900 and 2,100 metres.
• The Mizo Hills, mainly in Mizoram, run as alternating parallel ridges and valleys, with elevations from about 150 to over 1,500 metres.
• Saramati, on the Nagaland-Myanmar border, is the highest peak in the entire Purvanchal system, at roughly 3,826 metres.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. The Purvanchal Hills form the easternmost extension of which major mountain system?

The Himalaya

The Vindhya Range

The Western Ghats

The Aravalli Range

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Great to Know

• The Purvanchal formed through the same tectonic collision that raised the main Himalaya, just curved south around the syntaxial bend.
• This makes it geologically continuous with the Himalaya, distinct from unrelated systems like the Vindhya or Satpura.
• The hills fall within the Indo-Malayan biodiversity realm, giving them a distinct mix of species from that region.
• Many local communities in these hills practise jhum, or shifting, cultivation, farming a plot for a few years before moving on to let it recover.