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Asia's largest brackish-water lagoon, sealed from the sea by a long sandy bar.

Chilika is a shallow coastal lagoon cut off from the Bay of Bengal by a barrier spit built from longshore sand and river silt — a young, Holocene landform that shifts with every storm and flood. A narrow mouth lets tides mix salt and fresh water.

That mixing makes it extraordinarily productive: a Ramsar wetland wintering vast flocks of migratory birds and sheltering the rare Irrawaddy dolphin.

Sources

• Ramsar Convention

A short reference note: this summary draws on third-party sources such as the Geological Survey of India and Wikipedia. In time I plan to give every geological feature its own learning-oriented write-up — with custom diagrams, graphs, and study pointers — as I’ve already done for the 11 locations that have an Instagram reel.