The Eastern Ghats are a discontinuous range of mountains, eroded and cut through by the four major rivers of southern India, the Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna, and Kaveri. These mountain ranges run from West Bengal state in the north, through Orissa and Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu in the south. The region boasts of fertile soil but hydropower generation here is not as profitable as it is in the Western Ghats. These ranges run parallel to the Bay of Bengal. The Eastern Ghats are not as high as the Western Ghats. As with the Western Ghats, these mountain ranges also have their local names, e.g. the Velikonda Range of Andhra Pradesh.
The Western Ghats are the watershed for S India’s main eastward-flowing rivers, the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri.
The EasternGhats, a series of hills c.900 mi (1,450 km) long, extend SW from the Mahanadi valley to the Nilgiri Hills; the highest elevations are at the northern and southern ends.
Numerous rivers cut across the EasternGhats and are used for hydroelectric-power generation and irrigation.
The coastal plains lies between the easternGhats and the Bay of Bengal.
The Bilgiri Hills, which run east from the Western Ghats to the Kaveri river, forms a forested ecological corridor that connects the Eastern and Western Ghats, and allows the second-largest wild elephant population in India to range between the South EasternGhats, the Biligiri and Nilgiri hills, and the South Western Ghats.
The EasternGhats are older than the Western Ghats, and have a complex geologic history, related to the assembly and breakup of the ancient supercontinent of Rodinia and the assembly of the Gondwana supercontinent.
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