China has physical diversity. The eastern plain and southern coasts of the country consist of fertile lowlands and foothills. They are the location of most of China's agricultural output and human population. The southern areas of the country (south of the Yangtze River) consist of hilly and mountainous terrain. The west and north of the country are dominated by sunken basins (such as the Gobi and the Taklamakan), rolling plateaus, and towering massifs. It contains part of the highest tableland on earth, the Tibetan Plateau, and has much lower agricultural potential and population.
Traditionally, the Chinese population centered on the country whose center lay in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River on the northern plains. More recently, the coastline has been used extensively for export-oriented trade, causing the coastal provinces to become the leading economic center.
The People's Republic of China has an area of about . The exact land area is sometimes challenged by border disputes, most notably about Taiwan, Aksai Chin, the Trans-Karakoram Tract, and South Tibet. The area of the People's Republic of China is according to the CIA's The World Factbook. The People's Republic of China is either the third or fourth-largest country in the world, being either slightly larger or slightly smaller than the United States, depending on how the area of the United States is measured. Both countries are smaller than Russia and Canada and larger than Brazil.
Physical geography
Generalities
The topography of China has been divided by the Chinese government into five homogeneous physical macro-regions, namely Eastern China (subdivided into the northeast plain, north plain, and southern hills), Xinjiang-Mongolia, and the Tibetan highlands. It is diverse with snow-capped mountains, deep river valleys, broad basins, high plateaus, rolling plains, terraced hills, sandy dunes with many other geographic features 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) and basins (19 percent), though some of the greatest basins are filled with deserts. The country's rugged terrain presents problems for the construction of overland transportation infrastructure and requires extensive terracing to sustain agriculture, but is conducive to the development of forestry, mineral and hydropower resources, as well as tourism in the country.
Eastern China
Northeast Plain Northeast of Shanhaiguan a narrow sliver of flat coastal land opens up into the vast Northeast China Plain. The plains extend north to the crown of the "Chinese rooster", near where the Greater and Lesser Hinggan ranges converge. The Changbai Mountains to the east divide China from the Korean peninsula.
North plain The Taihang Mountains form the western side of the triangular North China Plain. The other two sides are the Pacific coast to the east and the Yangtze River to the southwest. The vertices of this triangle are Beijing to the north, Shanghai to the southeast, and Yichang to the southwest. This alluvial plain, fed by the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, is one of the most heavily populated regions of China. The only mountains in the plain are the Taishan in Shandong and Dabie Mountains of Anhui.
Beijing, at the north tip of the North China Plain, is shielded by the intersection of the Taihang and Yan Mountains. Further north are the drier grasslands of the Inner Mongolian Plateau, traditionally home to pastoralists. To the south are agricultural regions, traditionally home to sedentary populations. The Great Wall of China was built across the mountains that mark the southern edge of the Inner Mongolian Plateau. The Ming-era walls run over east to west from Shanhaiguan on the Bohai coast to the Hexi Corridor in Gansu.
South (hills)
East of the Tibetan Plateau, deeply folded mountains fan out toward the Sichuan Basin, which is ringed by mountains with 1,000–3,000 m elevation. The floor of the basin has an average elevation of 500 m and is home to one of the most densely farmed and populated regions of China. The Sichuan Basin is capped in the north by the eastward continuation of the Kunlun range, the Qinling, and the Dabashan. The Qinling and Dabashan ranges form a major north–south divide across China Proper, the traditional core area of China. Southeast of the Tibetan Plateau and south of the Sichuan Basin is the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau, which occupies much of southwest China. This plateau, with an average elevation of 2,000 m, is known for its limestone karst landscape.
South of the Yangtze, the landscape is more rugged. Like Shanxi Province to the north, Hunan and Jiangxi each have a provincial core in a river basin that is surrounded by mountains. The Wuling range separates Guizhou from Hunan. The Luoxiao and Jinggang divide Hunan from Jiangxi, which is separated from Fujian by the Wuyi Mountains. The southeast coastal provinces, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, have rugged coasts, with pockets of lowland and mountainous interior shaped by the Southeast Hills, especially Zhejiang–Fujian Hills. The Nanling is an east–west trending mountain range across northern Guangdong that separates Guangdong from Hunan and Jiangxi. It forms part of the broader Liangguang Hills spanning much of Guangdong and Guangxi, creating predominantly mountainous terrain with extensive karst influence.
Xinjiang-Mongolia
Northwest of the Tibetan Plateau, between the northern slope of Kunlun and southern slope of Tian Shan, is the vast Tarim Basin of Xinjiang, which contains the Taklamakan Desert. The Tarim Basin, the largest in China, measures from east to west and from north to south at its widest parts. Average elevation in the basin is 1,000 m. To the east, the basin descends into the Hami-Turpan Depression of eastern Xinjiang, where the dried lake bed of Lake Ayding, at −154m below sea level, is the lowest surface point in China and the third-lowest in the world. With temperatures that have reached 49.6 C., the lake bed ranks as one of the hottest places in China. North of Tian Shan is Xinjiang's second great basin, the Junggar, which contains the Gurbantünggüt Desert. The Junggar Basin is enclosed to the north by the Altay Mountains, which separate Xinjiang from Russia and Mongolia.
Northeast of the Tibetan Plateau, the Altun Shan–Qilian Mountains range branches off the Kunlun and creates a parallel mountain range running east–west. In between in northern Qinghai is the Qaidam Basin, with elevations of 2,600–3,000 m and numerous brackish and salt lakes. North of the Qilian is Hexi Corridor of Gansu, a natural passage between Xinjiang and China Proper that was part of the ancient Silk Road and traversed by modern highway and rail lines to Xinjiang. Further north, the Inner Mongolian Plateau, between 900 and 1,500 m in elevation, arcs north up the spine of China and becomes the Greater Hinggan Range of Northeast China.
Between the Qinling and the Inner Mongolian Plateau is Loess Plateau, the largest of its kind in the world, covering in Shaanxi, parts of Gansu and Shanxi provinces, and some of Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region. The plateau is 1,000–1,500m in elevation and is filled with loess, a yellowish, loose soil that travels easily in the wind. Eroded loess silt gives the Yellow River its color and name. The Loess Plateau is bound to the east by the Luliang Mountain of Shanxi, which has a narrow basin running north to south along the Fen River. Further east are the Taihang Mountains of Hebei, the dominant topographical feature of North China.
Highlands The world's tallest mountains, the Karakorum, Pamirs and Tian Shan divide China from South and Central Asia. Eleven of the seventeen tallest mountain peaks on Earth are located on China's western borders. They include the world's tallest peak Mount Everest (8848 m) in the Himalayas on the border with Nepal and the world's second tallest peak, K2 (8611 m) on the border with Pakistan. From these towering heights in the west, the land descends in steps like a terrace.
North of the Himalayas and east of the Karakorum/Pamirs is the vast Tibetan Plateau. It is the largest and highest plateau in the world, and for this reason is also informally known as the "Roof of the World". Its average elevation is 4000 meters above sea level. Its area is 2.5 million square kilometers which is just over a quarter of China's total area. In the north, the plateau is hemmed in by the Kunlun Mountains, which extends eastward from the intersection of the Pamirs, Karakorum and Tian Shan.
Tallest mountain peaks Besides Mt. Everest and K2, the other 9 of the world's 17 tallest peaks on China's western borders are: Lhotse (8516 m, 4th highest), Makalu (8485 m, 5th), Cho Oyu (8188 m, 6th), Gyachung Kang (7952 m, 15th) of the Himalayas on the border with Nepal and Gasherbrum I (8080 m, 11th), Broad Peak (8051 m, 12th), Gasherbrum II (8035 m, 13th), Gasherbrum III (7946 m, 16th) and Gasherbrum IV (7932 m, 17th) of the Karakorum on the border with Pakistan. The tallest peak entirely within China is Shishapangma (8013 m, 14th) of the Tibetan Himalayas in Nyalam County of Tibet Autonomous Region. In all, 9 of the 14 mountain peaks in the world over 8,000 m are in or on the border of China. Another notable Himalayan peak in China is Namchabarwa (7782 m, 28th), near the great bend of the Yarlungtsanpo (upper Brahmaputra) River in eastern Tibet, and considered to be the eastern anchor of the Himalayas.
Outside the Himalayas and Karakorum, China's tallest peaks are Kongur Tagh (7649 m, 37th) and Muztagh Ata (7546 m, 43rd) in the Pamirs of western Xinjiang, Gongga Shan (7556 m, 41st) in the Great Snowy Mountains of western Sichuan; and Tömür Shan (7439 m, 60th), the highest peak of Tian Shan, on the border with Kyrgyzstan.
Southwestern regions This region, like the entire Yangzi Valley, has an abundance of water, wetlands, and hot and humid summers. The Pacific Ocean's warm current creates milder winter temperatures than in the interior. In addition the nearby Huangshan and Wuyi mountiains are favorable for crops while the lowlands typically have aquaculture (rice, shrimp, ducks, and so on). Mild climates and abundant rainfall enable farmers to raise three or more crops each year. Southwestern China is a transition between eastern plains and the high Tibetan plateau; the region is largely mountainous.
Rivers