Chinas terrain

Chinas terrainmostly mountains, high plateaus, deserts in west; plains, deltas, and hills in eastTerrain 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 highlandsWith 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 lower agricultural potential population.TopographyThetopographyof China has been divided by the 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, 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.