At the 5,000-high Bogda Peak in the Tianshan Mountains, thousands of glaciers serve as a gigantic solid reservoir containing massive quantities of water. The mountains are the source of 370 rivers and countless lakes.
The Qiongzhou Strait is a body of water 30 kilometers across that separates Hainan from Guangdong Province. In prehistoric times, Hainan was part of the Chinese mainland, but around sixty million years ago, some lower-lying land was submerged, creating what we know today as the Qiongzhou Strait.
Where China reaches its northernmost point, lies Heilongjiang province. The Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains are covered by an ocean of trees. The Heilongjiang River waters two vast alluvial plains, helping to make the province “China’s largest granary.”
Shaanxi, lying in the Chinese heartland, can be roughly divided into three parts: the beautiful, fertile south, the vast Guanzhong Plain in the middle, and the Loess Plateau to the north. And across the whole province extend the Qinling Mountains.
Jiangxi Province, located in east China, is surrounded on three sides by mountains. The north of the province, where the land is mostly flat, is towered over by Mount Lushan. By contrast, the central part is an area of hills and valleys. Thousands of rivers run through Jiangxi, with most of them emptying into Poyang Lake.
This is Shanghai, the great metropolis located on China’s east coast, at the point where the Yangtze empties into the sea. The city lies on a plain which is, on average, just four meters above sea level. Two rivers cross Shanghai: the Suzhou and the Huangpu. The western bank of the Huangpu River is called Puxi, and the eastern, Pudong.