Topography of northern China

The valleys, hills and mountains are blanketed metres deep in a fine-grained soil known as loess, a pale mixture of clay and silt deposited by strong winds during the last Ice Age. This fertile substance makes the region a farming heartland.

The north-eastern part of this region, containing Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, is covered with vast forests full of tall pines and cedars, dense bamboos and flamboyant rhododendrons. Between the fields and woods lie plateaux that are incised by gorges and ravines containing rushing rivers. Further south, on the densely populated North China Plain, the land is flat, with fields of grain stretching for miles.