Pragnya IAS · Chapter 3 of 15 · National parks of India

National parks in India map: central & Deccan

Read the teak-and-sal heartland where India’s tiger story is strongest — Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Satpura and the cheetah’s new home at Kuno.

INDIA · REFERENCE LOCATIONSMap keys

State geometry: geoBoundaries India (CC BY 2.5 IN), simplified for this plate. Numbered points are approximate study references, not legal protected-area boundaries or measured thematic fields.

STUDY NOTE 1

Madhya Pradesh is the core

Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Satpura, Panna, Madhav and Sanjay make Madhya Pradesh the densest cluster of celebrated parks in India. Kanha’s sal meadows saved the hard-ground barasingha from extinction.

STUDY NOTE 2

Kuno and the cheetah

Kuno (Madhya Pradesh) hosts the reintroduced African cheetah under Project Cheetah (2022) — the world’s first intercontinental large-carnivore translocation. Panna, nearby, rebuilt its own tiger population from zero after 2009.

STUDY NOTE 3

The Deccan belt

Tadoba-Andhari and Navegaon (Maharashtra) and Betla (Jharkhand) carry the belt east and south. Satpura adds a landscape of deep valleys and high plateaus to the central chain.

STUDY NOTE 4

Read the connections

Pench straddles the Madhya Pradesh–Maharashtra border; a park can lie in two states. Bandhavgarh’s density of tigers and Kanha’s meadow ecology are the classic contrast pair for answers.

Map reading activity

Shade the Madhya Pradesh cluster and name the park linked to each: barasingha, cheetah, tiger translocation success and a two-state boundary.

What does this national parks: central & deccan lesson explain?

UPSC map practice & Geography Optional connection

For UPSC Prelims environment questions and GS III, pair each protected area or convention site with its state, ecosystem and flagship species. Use a labelled sketch to show distribution; lists and counts change, so note the update date rather than memorising a frozen tally. These are Pragnya-authored exercises, not official UPSC previous-year questions.

References & original artwork

This lesson covers chapter 3 of the supplied reference curriculum. Pragnya IAS notes, activities and questions are independently authored; source PDF pages, branding, personal watermarks and unverified PYQs are not republished. India state geometry: geoBoundaries (CC BY 2.5 IN), simplified. These are educational concept views, not legal boundaries or official protected-area maps.