The Western Ghats are a landscape to understand through connections: mountains and monsoon, forest and grassland, a river’s headwaters and the country below. Running roughly parallel to India’s western coast, the chain extends for about 1,600 kilometres. Its importance is not contained in one viewpoint. Moisture-bearing winds meet the mountains, and the resulting differences in rainfall and elevation help produce a remarkable variety of environments along the western side of the peninsula.
The geographical range crosses Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The World Heritage property is more selective: inscribed in 2012, it consists of thirty-nine components arranged in seven clusters across four states. The distinction matters when planning a journey. A town, plantation or road within the Western Ghats is not automatically part of the inscribed property, and the name on a regional map is not a permit to enter every protected forest.
