Kerala occupies a long, narrow strip along India's southwestern coast. It is bounded by the Arabian Sea to the west and the Western Ghats mountain chain to the east, with Karnataka to the north and Tamil Nadu to the east and south. This setting gives the state remarkable ecological variety within a relatively small area.
Three broad physical regions are commonly identified: - **Coastal lowlands** with beaches, estuaries, lagoons, and dense settlement. - **Midlands** of undulating terrain, river valleys, lateritic uplands, and mixed agriculture. - **Highlands** in the Western Ghats, with mountains, forested slopes, tea estates, spice plantations, and wildlife habitats.
Kerala has an intricate network of rivers flowing westward from the Ghats to the sea. Major rivers include the Periyar, Bharathapuzha, Pamba, Chaliyar, Chalakudy, and Kallada. The state is also famous for its backwaters, especially around Vembanad Lake, Ashtamudi Lake, and the Kuttanad region. These linked water bodies form one of the best-known inland water landscapes in India.
The Western Ghats portion of Kerala is globally important for biodiversity. Forests include tropical wet evergreen, semi-evergreen, moist deciduous, montane shola-grassland systems, and plantation landscapes. Protected areas such as Periyar, Eravikulam, Silent Valley, Wayanad, and Parambikulam support elephants, tigers, gaur, lion-tailed macaques, Nilgiri tahr, and many endemic birds, amphibians, and plants.
Natural resources include forests, water, fisheries, fertile alluvial and lateritic soils, mineral sands in some coastal stretches, and highly valuable plantation crops such as rubber, tea, coffee, cardamom, and pepper. Kerala's geography is also environmentally sensitive: steep slopes, intense monsoon rainfall, river basin alteration, coastal erosion, and high settlement density combine to create flood and landslide risks.