The Daxue Range or Daxue Mountains () are a great
mountain range
A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...
in the western part of
Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
province in
Southwest China
Southwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Xizang.
Geography
Southwestern China is a rugged and mountainous region, ...
. It is part of the
Hengduan Mountains
The Hengduan Mountains () are a group of mountain ranges in southwest China, southwest China that connect the southeast portions of the Tibetan Plateau with the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau. The Hengduan Mountains are primarily large north-south ...
, a complicated system of mountain ranges of western Sichuan, which itself is adjacent to the eastern edge of the
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
an Plateau.
Geography
The Daxue Mountain Range runs for several hundred kilometers in a general north-south direction, mostly within Sichuan's
Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, often shortened to Ganzi Prefecture, is an autonomous prefecture in the western arm of Sichuan province, China bordering Yunnan to the south, the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west, and Gansu to the north ...
.
The Daxue Range marks a transitional zone between the arid
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...
and the wetter Sichuan Basin.
It separates the basins of the
Yalong River
The Yalong River ( zh, 雅砻江, Pinyin, p ''Yǎlóngjiāng'', Wade–Giles, w ''Ya-lung Chiang'', Help:IPA/Mandarin, IPA ), or Nyag Chu (Standard Tibetan, Tibetan: , Tibetan pinyin, z ''Nyag Qu''), is a major tributary ...
(to the west) and the
Dadu River (to the east). Both rivers flow in the general southern direction, and are tributaries of the
Yangtze
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
.
The tallest peak of the range, the
Gongga Shan (Minya Konka), measures 7,556 meters in height. It is located in the southern part of the range.
To the east and south of the
Gongga Shan, the Daxue Mountains are adjacent to the smaller
Daxiangling and
Xiaoxiangling ranges, which, however, are usually considered by cartographers as separate ranges.
[E.g., 使用中国地图集 (''Shiyong Zhongguo Dituji'', "Practical Atlas of China"), 2008, ; map of Sichuan on pp. 142-143]
See also
*
Hengduan Mountains
The Hengduan Mountains () are a group of mountain ranges in southwest China, southwest China that connect the southeast portions of the Tibetan Plateau with the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau. The Hengduan Mountains are primarily large north-south ...
*
Global 200
The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by the World Wide Fund for Nature ( WWF), the global conservation organization, as priorities for conservation. According to WWF, an ecoregion is defined as a "relatively large unit of land or w ...
References
External links
Sichuan Information
Mountain ranges of Sichuan
{{Sichuan-geo-stub