Geography in China
China extends some 5,026 kilometers across the East Asian landmass bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam. The intermediate variations of landscapes include vast plains, endless deserts, and spectacular mountain ranges.
The eastern half of the country sea boundary with offshore islands. Encompasses a region of fertile lowlands, foothills and mountains, deserts, steppes, and subtropical areas. The western half of China is a region of sunken basins, rolling plateaus, and towering massifs, including a portion of the highest tableland on earth.
In spite of many good harbors along the approximately 18,000-kilometer coastline, the nation has traditionally oriented itself not toward the sea but inland China also has the Tibetan Plateau, a very large, high altitude plateau, to the south. To the north of the Tibetan Plateau lie the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts, which stretch from the extreme northwest eastward through Mongolia.
China covers an area of 9,629,091 km2.
From the Tibetan Plateau is a vast, elevated plateau covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province in the People's Republic of China and Ladakh in Kashmir. With an average elevation of over 4,500 meters, the highest and biggest plateau in the world and an area of 2.5 million square kilometers.
The east-west ranges include some of Asia's greatest mountains. In addition to the Himalayas and the Kunlun Mountains, there are the Kailash (Gangdise) and the Tian Shan ranges.
The largest inland basin in China, the Tarim Basin measures 1,500 kilometres from east to west and 600 kilometres from north to south at its widest parts. The Himalayas form a natural boundary on the southwest as the Altai Mountains do on the northwest.
Flowing from its source in the Tibetan highlands, the Yellow River courses toward the sea through the North China PlainThe plain itself is actually a continuation of the Manchurian Plain to the northeast.
The Qinling mountain range, a continuation of the Kunlun Mountains, divides the North China Plain from the Yangtze River Delta and is the major physiographic boundary between the two great parts of China Proper.
West of the Nanling, the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau rises in two steps, averaging 1,200 and 1,800 metres in elevation, respectively, toward the precipitous mountain regions of the eastern Tibetan Plateau.
The Hai Riverflows from west to east. Its upper course consists of five rivers that converge near Tianjin, then flow seventy kilometers before emptying into the Bohai Gulf. Inland drainage involving a number of upland basins in the north and northeast accounts for about 40 percent of the country's total drainage area. Many rivers and streams flow into lakes or diminish in the desert. Some are useful for irrigation.
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