South Asia, in the limited sense of the term, consists of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, peninsular India, and Sri Lanka. The Indo-Gangetic Plain is formed from the combined alluvial plains of the Indus, Ganges (Ganga), and Brahmaputra rivers, which lie in a deep marginal depression running north of and parallel to the main range of the Himalayas. It is an area of subsidence into which thick accumulations of earlier marine sediments and later continental deposits have washed down from the rising mountains. The sediments provide fertile soil in the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins and in irrigated parts of the Indus basin, ...(100 of 38030 words)