GANGES RIVER

The Brahmaputra and Ganges river basins and their drainage network. Hindi Ganga, great river of the plains of northern India. Although officially as well as popularly called the Ganga, both in Hindi and in other Indian languages, internationally it is known by its Anglicized name, the Ganges. From time immemorial it has been the holy river of the Hindus. For most of its course it is a wide and sluggish stream, flowing through one of the most fertile and densely populated tracts of territory in the world. Despite its importance, its length of 1,560 miles (2,510 kilometres) makes it relatively short by both world and Asian standards. Rising in the Himalayas and emptying into the Bay of Bengal, it drains a quarter of the territory of India, while its basin supports an immense concentration of people. The Gangetic Plain, across which it flows, is the heartland of the region known as Hindustan and has been the cradle of successive civilizations from the kingdom of Asoka in the 3rd century BC, down to the Mughal Empire, founded in the 16th century. For most of its course the Ganges flows through Indian territory, although its large delta in the Bengal area lies mostly in Bangladesh. The general direction of the river's flow is from north-northwest to southeast. At its delta, the flow is generally southward. Nafis Ahmad Deryck O. Lodrick Hindi Ganga great river of the plains of northern India, held sacred by people of the Hindu faith. The Ganges' five headstreamsthe Bhagirathi, Alaknanda, Mandakini, Dhauliganga, and Pindarall rise in northernmost Uttar Pradesh state in India. On its 1,560-mile (2,510-kilometre) course the Ganges flows in a southeasterly direction across the Gangetic Plain from Uttar Pradesh through the Indian states of Bihar and West Bengal. Its major tributaries include the Yamuna, Ramganga, and Ghaghara rivers in Uttar Pradesh and the Gandak, Burhi Gandak, and Kosi rivers in Bihar. In central Bangladesh the Ganges is joined from the north by the great Brahmaputra River near Goalundo Ghat and from the northeast by the Meghna River above Chandpur. Their combined waters empty into the Bay of Bengal through innumerable channels that form a delta 200 miles (320 km) wide, which is shared by India and Bangladesh. The Gangetic Plain is one of the most fertile and densely populated regions in the world. Because there is little relief across the surface of the plain, the Ganges for most of its course is a wide and sluggish stream. Its total drainage basin covers an area of about 376,800 square miles (975,900 square km), or roughly a quarter of the territory of India, and supports nearly a half billion people. The land of the basin is intensely cultivated. The water supply of the Ganges system is dependent partly on the rains brought by the monsoon winds from July to October, as well as on the flow from melting Himalayan snows in the hot season from April to June. Use of the river's water for irrigation, either when the Ganges floods or by means of gravity canals, has been common since early times. Irrigation has increased the production of such food and cash crops as wheat, sugarcane, cotton, and oilseeds in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Additional reading Descriptions of the Ganges are found in surveys of the corresponding regions, such as R.L. Singh (ed.), India: A Regional Geography (1971); S.D. Misra, Rivers of India (1970); B.C. Law (ed.), Mountains and Rivers of India (1968); and Satis Chandra Majumdar, Rivers of the Bengal Delta (1942). More focused subject studies are Development of Irrigation in India (1965), a publication of the Central Board of Irrigation and Power of the Indian government; K.L. Rao, India's Water Wealth, rev. ed. (1979); and G.K. Dutt and A.K. Kundu (eds.), Irrigation Atlas of India, 2nd rev. ed., 2 vol. (198789). The Ganges itself is examined in Khurshida Begum, Tension Over the Farakka Barrage: A Techno-Political Tangle in South Asia (1988), discussing the political repercussions in connection with the Farakka Dam; Eric Newby, Slowly Down the Ganges (1966, reissued 1986), an illustrated descriptive guide; Steven G. Darian, The Ganges in Myth and History (1978); and Raghubir Singh, Ganga: Sacred River of India (1974), a photographic essay. Deryck O. Lodrick