THE EAST COAST REGION has on the whole a more fertile soil than the Deccan, its rainfall is greater, being as a rule from 40 to 50 inches, and the lower courses of such rivers as the Mahanadi, Godavari, and Kistna, afford facilities for the irrigation of large areas. Hence rice is the most important crop of the region, although millet and cotton also cover a considerable area. The density of population is greater than in the Deccan, being over 200 to the square mile in the north, and over 300 in the south.
Of the towns, Madras is the most important, but it is handicapped as a port by its want of a good natural harbour, and it has also been affected, since the opening up of the south of India by railways, by such ports as Tuticorin and Negapatam, and even by such west coast ports as Cochin and Calicut. Hides and skins form the most important articles of export, followed by Indian piece goods and raw cotton. The trade of the other east coast ports is similar in character.
BURMA.—In the Indo-Chinese peninsula the mountain ranges, which take their rise in the eastern extension of the Tibetan plateau, run, as a general rule, from north to south, and are separated from one another by the valleys of great rivers. Of these rivers the Irrawaddy is the most important in Burma. After leaving the confused mountainous mass in the north of the country, it flows south to its delta through broad but not continuous plains, bordered on the west of its tributary, the Chindwin, by the Naga and Manipur hills, and further south by the Arakan and Arakan Yoma ranges, which separate it from the Bay of Bengal ; and on the east by the Kachin Hills and the Shan plateau, which form the divide between it and the Salwen. Further south the Pegu Yoma mountains
separate it from the Sittang, while the Paunglaung range lies between the latter river and the Salwen. Beyond the Salwen, again, lies mountainous country which extends southwards, at no great distance from the coast, to the extremity of Lower Burma. Plains of varying breadth lie between the coasts and the ranges which border them.
It is to the coastal plains and ranges, and to the delta lands at the mouths of the rivers, that the south-west monsoon gives the heaviest rainfall, which is usually far in excess of 100 inches per year. In the lowlands of the Irrawaddy, on the other hand, between the 20th and 23rd parallels, the precipitation does not exceed 40 inches, and is in many places much less. The mountainous region to the north, west, and east of this dry area has over 50 inches, while southwards, as far as the deltaic lands, the rainfall gradually increases to 100 inches.
Four natural regions based upon physical and climatic differences may be recognised : the littoral districts with a heavy rainfall but with little space for economic development ; the mountainous parts of Upper Burma, also with a heavy rainfall but generally unsuitable for settlement; the dry region of Upper Burma, consisting chiefly of plains in the valleys of the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin ; and the sub-deltaic and deltaic divisions which may be taken together, although the rainfall increases greatly from north to south.