Consider the following pairs:
- 1.Nokrek Biosphere Reserve - Garo Hills
- 2.Logtak (Loktak) Lake - Barail Range
- 3.Namdapha National Park - Dafla Hills
Which of the above pairs is/are correctly matched?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (a) 1 only
Only pair 1 is correct, so the answer is (a). Nokrek Biosphere Reserve lies in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya. Loktak Lake, known for its floating phumdis, lies in the Manipur valley, not in the Barail Range. Namdapha National Park is in Changlang district of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, far from the Dafla Hills.
- ✓ 1. Nokrek was designated a biosphere reserve in 1988 and is in Meghalaya. UNESCO describes Nokrek as the highest peak of the Garo Hills, at 1,412 metres.
- ✗ 2. Loktak Lake, with its floating phumdis, is in the Manipur valley. Keibul Lamjao National Park lies on the lake. The Barail Range is a separate hill range to the north and west, extending across Nagaland and Assam.
- ✗ 3. Namdapha National Park is in Changlang district of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, near the Myanmar border. It lies between the Dapha Bum ridge of the Mishmi Hills and the Patkai range. The Dafla Hills, home of the Nyishi people, are in a different region of Arunachal Pradesh, to the west.
- • Answer Only pair 1 is correctly matched. Pair 2 wrongly places Loktak in the Barail Range, and pair 3 wrongly places Namdapha in the Dafla Hills.
Remember · Nokrek BR is in the Garo Hills, Meghalaya (1988). Loktak and Keibul Lamjao are in the Manipur valley. Namdapha is in Changlang, eastern Arunachal, between the Mishmi Hills and the Patkai range. The Dafla Hills are in western Arunachal.
📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 11 India: Physical Environment, Ch 5 (practise this chapter) · Class 9 Exploration, Ch 12 (practise this chapter)
Sources
- UNESCO MAB – Nokrek Biosphere Reserve ↗ “The entire area is mountainous, and Nokrek is the highest peak of the Garo Hills at 1,412 metres.”
- NCERT Class 11 · India: Physical Environment, Chapter 5 “Nilgiri 1986 Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. 2. Nanda Devi 1988 Uttarakhand. 3. Nokrek 1988 Meghalaya.”
- NCERT Class 9 · Exploration, Chapter 12 “It is located in the Loktak lake of the Keibul Lamjo National Park, in Manipur, India.”
Question: UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) 2013, General Studies Paper I. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 25 Oct 2026 (how we verify). ·
