Terai

The Terai, also spelled Tarai, is a lowland region in parts of southern Nepal and northern India that lies south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas and the Sivalik Hills and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It is characterized by tall grasslands, scrub savanna, sal forests and clay-rich swamps, and forms part of the Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands ecoregion. In India the Terai spreads eastward from the Yamuna River across Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, while Nepal's own Terai covers roughly 34,000 square kilometers, about 23 percent of the country's land area, and includes more than 50 wetlands.