District Panchkula
Panchkula
Panchkula is a planned city in Panchkula District, Haryana, India. It is a satellite city of the Union Territory of Chandigarh. The Chandimandir Cantonment is also located in Panchkula city. There are four towns in the district named Panchkula, Pinjore, Kalka and Raipur Rani. The only Hill station in Haryana called Morni is also in this District. The estimated population of Panchkula city, in 2006, is 2,00,000. Panchkula and Mohali (in Punjab) are two satellite cities of Chandigarh. These three cities are collectively known as Chandigarh Tricity. The origin of the name Panchkula is based on the five irrigation canals (or kuls as they were called, making it Panch Kul of five canals) that take water from the Ghaggar in the uphill section and distribute it from Nada Sahib to Mansa Devi. The Nada canal has now been eroded by the river and most of the kul's pass through the cantonement of Chandimandir towards Mansa Devi. The canals are a beautiful example of community property and are maintained by the villagers along the way, with distribution days decided. The canals were made by a ruler in the past, and follow the contours to take water to levels much higher than the river at the same spot
Panchkula is surrounded by Himachal Pradesh in the north and east, Punjab and Union Territory of Chandigarh in the west and by Ambala district in the south as well as east. Panchkula district shares its borders with Chandigarh, Mohali district, Ambala district and Solan district.
Panchkula district has a sub tropical continental monsoon climate where the seasons are, hot summer, cool winter, good monsoon rainfall and great variation in temperature (0 °C to 43 °C). In winter frost sometimes occurs during December and January. The district also receives winter rains from the western disturbance. The rainfall is mostly received in the monsoon. Morni hills constitute the highest point of the district as well as of Haryana. The Ghaggar river is the only perennial river. It is very shallow outside of the monsoons. The Ghaggar river system is now thought to be the original Saraswati river, It now dries up in Rajasthan and does not reach the sea. This is due to geological changes that diverted the Sutlej from Ropar to take another channel. The important rivers/streams of the district are Ghaggar, Sirsa, Kaushalya.
Generally the slope of the district is from north east to south west and in this direction, most of the rivers/streams rainfed torrents flow down and spread much gravels and pebbles in their beds. Only the Sirsa river, in Kalka Tehsil, flows towards northwest through a u arrow halt of shivalik tract. The soils in the district are mainly light loam (seoti) piedmont (Ghar and Kandi), Swalik (pahar), silticlay (Naili and chhachhra Dakar) etc. The under ground water in the district occurs under confirmed and semi-confirmed conditions which is generally fresh and suitable for domestic and irrigation purposes. The under ground water level is generally high in the southern parts and low in north and northeast which is hilly tract. The district lies in a region where earthquakes of moderate to high intensity have been felt in the past. Being situated at the Himalayan boundary fault zones it is prone to earthquakes.
