Nilgiri hills

The Nilgiri (Tamil: நிலகிரி, blue mountains), are a range of mountains forming a part of the Western Ghats which is loacted in the western part of Tamil Nadu, state at the junction of Karnataka and Kerala states in Southern India. At least 24 of the Nilgiri mountains's peak above 2,000 metres (6,600 ft), the highest peak being Doddabetta, at 2,637 metres (8,652 ft).

The hills are separated from the Karnataka plateau to the north by the Moyar River and from the Anaimalai Hills and Palni Hills to the south by the Palghat Gap. The Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu lies within these mountains. Its latitudinal and longitudinal dimensions are 130 km (Latitude: 11° 08' to 11° 37' N) by 185 km (Longitude: 76° 27' E to 77° 4' E). Central location is: 11°22′30″N 76°45′30″E. It has an area of 2,479 square kilometres (957 sq mi). It is connected via Nilgiri Mountain Railway.
The high steppes of the Nilgiri Hills have been inhabited since prehistoric times as the large number of artefacts unearthed by excavators demonstrates. A particularly important collection from the region can be seen in the British Museum, including those assembled by colonial officers James Wilkinson Breeks, Major M J Walhouse and Sir Walter Elliot. The first recorded use of the word Nila applied to this region can be traced to 1117 AD in the report of a general of Vishnuvardhana, King of Hoysalas, who in reference to his enemies, claimed to have "frightened the Todas, driven the Kongu people underground, slaughtered the Pallavas, put to death the Malayalas, terrified King Kala and then proceeded to offer the peak of Nila Mountain (presumably Doddabetta or Rangaswami peak of Peranganad in East Nilgiris) to Lakshmi, Goddess of Wealth.

In 1814, Keys, a sub-assistant, and McMahon, an apprentice in the Survey Department, ascended the hills by the Danaynkeucottah Pass, penetrated into the remotest parts, made plans, and sent in reports of their discoveries. As a result of these accounts, Messrs. Whish and Kindersley, two young Madras civilians, ventured up in pursuit of some criminals taking refuge in the mountains, and proceeded to reconnoitre the interior. They soon saw and felt enough favorable climate and terrain to excite their own curiosity and that of others.

With a detachment of Europeans and Indian sepoys, he set out on his mission on 2 January 1819. The journey involved crossing rough and harsh terrain, steep precipices and danger from wild animals. After an expedition that lasted for six days and loss of the lives of some of the expedition members, Sullivan finally reached a plateau from where he proudly hoisted the British flag. In May, 1819, the same tourists from Coimbatore, accompanied by Monsieur Leschnault de la Tour, naturalist to the King of France, repeated their excursion. They asserted the temperature in the shade to be 74 °F (23 °C) at a time when the temperature of the plains was up to 100 °F (38 °C). Such a climate within the tropics was considered so great an anomaly that few at first believed its existence.

After the early 1820s, the hills were developed rapidly under the British Raj because most of the land was by then privately owned by British citizens. It was a popular summer and weekend getaway for the British during the colonial days. In 1827 Ooty became the official sanatorium and the summer capital of the Madras Presidency. Many winding hill roads were built. In 1899, The Nilgiri Mountain Railway was completed by influential and enterprising British citizens with venture capital from the Madras government. In the 19th century, when the British Straits Settlement shipped Chinese convicts to be jailed in India, the Chinese men then settled in the Nilgiri mountains near Naduvattam after their release and married Tamil Paraiyan women, having mixed Chinese-Tamil children with them. They were documented by Edgar Thurston. Paraiyan is also anglicized as "pariah".

Over 2700 species of flowering plants, 160 species of fern and fern allies, countless types of flowerless plants, mosses, fungi, algae, land lichens are found in the sholas of the Nilgiris. No other hill station has so many exotic species.

The Nilgiri tahr animal can be found in the hills.

Much of the Nilgiris' natural montane grasslands and shrublands interspersed with sholas has been much disturbed or destroyed by extensive tea plantations, easy motor-vehicle access, extensive commercial planting and harvesting of non-native eucalyptus and wattle (Acacia dealbata, Acacia mearnsii) plantations, and cattle grazing. The area also features one large and several smaller hydro-electric impoundments. Scotch broom has become an ecologically damaging invasive species.