The Utkal Plain is part of the Eastern Coastal Plain of India. It is a

coastal plain A coastal plain (also coastal plains, coastal lowland, coastal lowlands) is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and an upland area. Formation Coastal plains can f ...

in the

Odisha Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...

state of eastern

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It includes the

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

of the

Mahanadi River The Mahanadi River is a major river in East Central India. It drains an area of around and has a total length of . Mahanadi is also known for the Hirakud Dam which was the first major multipurpose river valley project after India's independence ...

Brahmani River The Brahmani is a major seasonal river in the Odisha state of eastern India. The Brahmani is formed by the confluence of the Sankh and South Koel rivers, and flows through the districts of Sundargarh, Deogarh, Angul, Dhenkanal, Cuttack, ...

, Baitarani River. The most prominent physiographic feature of this plain is the Chilka Lake. It is the biggest lake in the country and its area varies between 780 km² in winter to 1,144 km² in the monsoon months. Utkal Plains, coastal plains in eastern Orissa state, eastern India. Extending over about , the plains are bounded by the Lower Ganges (Ganga) Plain to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Andhra Plains to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west. The Utkal Plains are coastal lowlands consisting chiefly of Mahanadi delta deposits and marine sediments, and they merge with the Eastern Ghats at an elevation of about . The plains have a nearly straight shoreline. Paleogene and Neogene alluvium (from about 65 to 2.6 million years ago) with patches of ancient Archean

gneiss Gneiss (pronounced ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. This rock is formed under p ...

and sandstone (from about 4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago), the plains are widest in the deltaic regions. Sand dunes of decomposed granites and zircon, created mainly by the action of wind at low tide, and lagoons are found along the Bay of Bengal. Chilka, the largest lake in the region (in the southwest), is salty; Samang and Sur (north and northeast of Puri, respectively) are freshwater lakes. Littoral forests are found along the coast of the Cuttack and Balasore areas, and tropical moist deciduous forests are found inland throughout the regions near Puri and Cuttack. The Mahanadi, Brahmani, Baitarani, and Subarnarekha rivers are often subject to heavy flooding; the combined outflow of these rivers has formed the Mahanadi delta in the northern part of the plains. The region has fertile red and black soils.

References

Plains of India Landforms of Odisha Coastal plains {{Odisha-geo-stub