Chinas terrain

mostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in

west; plains, deltas, and hills in east

 Terrain or land relief- is the vertical

and horizontal dimension of land
surface. When relief is described
underwater, the term bathymetry is
used.Terrainis used as a general
term in physical geography, referring
to the lay of the land.

 China stretches some 5,026 km (3,123 mi)

across the East Asian landmass.
China is bordered in the east by theEast
China Sea,Korea Bay,Yellow Sea,Taiwan
Strait, andSouth China Sea, and shares
land borders with a total of 14 countries in
the north, south and west.
China has been officially and conveniently
divided into 5 homogeneous physical
macro-regions: Eastern China (subdivided
into the Northeast plain, North plain, and
southern hills), Xinjiang-Mongolia, and the
Tibetan highlands

 With 3.7 million square miles (9.6 sq.

km) of terrain,Chinas landscape is
diverse and expansive. Hainan
Province, Chinas southernmost region
is in the tropics, while Heilongjiang
Province which borders Russia, can dip
to below freezing.
There are also the western desert and
plateau regions of Xinjiang and Tibet,
and to the north lies the vast
grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Just
about every physical landscape can be
found in China.

 It has great physical diversity. The

east and south of the country
consists of fertile lowlands and
foothills, and is the location of most
of China's agricultural output and
human population. The west and
north of the country is dominated
by sunkenbasins(such as
theGobiand theTaklamakan),
rollingplateaus, and
toweringmassifs. It contains part of
the highesttablelandon earth,
theTibetan Plateau, and has much

Topography
Thetopographyof China has
been divided by the
government into five
homogeneous physical macroregions, namely Eastern China
(subdivided into the northeast
plain, north plain, and
southern hills), XinjiangMongolia, and the Tibetan

 It is diverse with snow-capped mountains, deep river

valleys, broad basins, high plateaus, rolling plains,
terraced hills, sandy dunes, craggykarsts,
volcaniccalderas, low-latitude glaciers and other
landforms present in myriad variations. In general, the
land is high in the west and descends to the east coast.
Mountains (33 percent), plateaus (26 percent) and hills (10
percent) account for nearly 70 percent of the country's
land surface. Most of the country's arable land and
population are based in lowland plains (12 percent)
andbasins(19 percent), though some of the greatest
basins are filled with deserts. The country's rugged terrain
presents problems for the construction ofoverland
transportation infrastructureand requires extensive
terracing to sustainagriculture, but is conducive to the
development of
forestry,mineralandhydropowerresources, andtourism.

Topographic map of China

Mountains and Rivers:

Major mountain ranges in China include the
Himalayas along the India and Nepal border, the
Kunlun Mountains in the center west region, the
Tianshan Mountains in the northwest Xinjiang
Uygur Autonomous Region, the Qinling Mountains
that separates north and south China, the Greater
Hinggan Mountains in the northeast, the Tiahang
Mountains in north central China, and the
Hengduan Mountains in the southeast where
Tibet, Sichuan and Yunnan meet.

 The rivers in China include the 4,000-mile (6,300

km) Yangzi River, also known as the Changjiang or
the Yangzte, that begins in Tibet and cuts trough
the middle of country, before emptying into the
East China Sea near Shanghai.
It is the third longest river in the world after the
Amazon and the Nile.

 The 1,200-mile (1900 km) Huanghe or Yellow

River begins in the western Qinghai Province and
travels a meandering route through North China
to the Bohai Sea in Shangdong Province.
The Heilongjiang or Black Dragon River runs along
the Northeast marking Chinas border with Russia.
Southern China has the Zhujiang or Pearl River
whose tributaries make a delta emptying into the
South China Sea near Hong Kong.

A Difficult Land:
WhileChina is fourth largest countryin the world,
behind Russia, Canada and the United States in
terms of landmass, only about 15 percent of it is
arable, as most of the country is made of
mountains, hills and highlands.
Throughout history this has proven a challenge to
grow enough food to feed China's large
population. Farmers have practiced intensive
agriculture methods, some of which have led to
great erosion of its mountains.

 For centuries China has also struggled with

earthquakes, droughts, floods, typhoons, tsunamis
and sandstorms. It is no surprise then that much
of Chinese development has been shaped by the
land.
Because so much of western China is not as fertile
as other regions, most of the population lives in
the eastern third of the country. This has resulted
in uneven development where eastern cities are
heavily populated and more industrial and
commercial while the western regions are less
populated and have little industry.

 Located on the Pacific Rim, China's earthquakes

have been severe. The 1976 Tangshan earthquake
in northeast China is said to have killed more than
200,000 people. In May 2008, an earthquake in
southwestern Sichuan province killed nearly
87,000 people and left millions homeless.