|
Mountains cover 67.5 per cent of Shanxi province which also has highlands, hills and basins and stands about 1,000 meters or more above sea level, sloping from northeast to southwest. With a thick layer of yellow earth covering its land surface, Shanxi is customarily called the Shanxi Plateau, which actually forms the eastern section of the Loess Plateau. The Central Shanxi Basin, the main farming area and economic center, crosses the central part of the province from north to south in a series of valleys: the Datong, Xinxian, Taiyuan, Linfen and Yuncheng. The Taihang range, the natural geographic divide between the Shanxi Plateau and the North China Plain, lies in the Eastern Shanxi Mountain Area which also includes -- from north to south --the Hengshan, Wutai, Taiyue and Zhongtiao mountains, all exceeding 1,500 meters in elevation. The area is interspersed with the Changzhi, Pingding, Jincheng and Shouyang intermontane basins. The Western Shanxi Tableland, with the Luliang Mountains as the main range, is badly eroded with the loess-covered ground cut into a web of gullies.
The western and southern borders of Shanxi are drained by the Huanghe River where the Hukou Waterfall and the Longmen Rapids have hydroelectric power potential. The Fenhe, Sushui and Qinhe rivers in the province are tributaries of the Huanghe; the Sanggan, Hutuo and Zhanghe rivers in the east are upriver streams of the Haihe River.
(china.org.cn)
|
