Geology of China

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Geology of China (or the geological structure of the People's Republic of China) can be divided into several parts. The historical centre of Chinese culture is on the loess plateau, the world's largest Quaternary loess deposit, and on the alluvial lands at the east of it. The alluvial East China plain extends from just south of Beijing in the north, to the Yangzi river delta in the south, punctuated only by the igneous Shandong highlands and peninsula. South of the Yangzi river, most of the landscape is mountainous, dominated by sedimentary deposits and by the Yangzi craton. The most famous scenery in China is found in the karst landscapes of Guangxi and Yunnan provinces. The alluvial Sichuan basin is surrounded by mountains, the Qinling mountains to the north and the Himalaya to the west and southwest. Much of Northeast China, or Manchuria, is dominated by alluvial plains, but the border regions with Korea are also highly mountainous.

In the west, most of the Tibetan plateau is in China, and averages over 4000 metres in elevation. The Yunnan-Guizhou plateau is also an extension of the Tibetan plateau.