The Mountains of Southwest China is a

biodiversity hotspot A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in ''The Environmentalist'' in 1988 and 1990, after which the c ...

designated by Conservation International which includes several

temperate coniferous forests Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Temperate coniferous forests are found predominantly in areas with warm summers and cool winters, and vary in their kinds of plant life. In some, needl ...

in southwestern China, which lie in the river valleys on the southeastern corner of the

Tibetan plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...

, between the alpine scrublands and steppes of the Tibetan Plateau and the temperate broadleaf and mixed and subtropical moist broadleaf forests of central and southeastern China and northern

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. The hotspot is mostly in China, in the provinces of

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

, and Gansu, and extending into the northwestern Myanmar. The ecoregions in the hotspot include: * Hengduan Mountains subalpine conifer forests *

Nujiang Lancang Gorge alpine conifer and mixed forests The Nujiang Lancang Gorge alpine conifer and mixed forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion in Southwest China and northeastern Myanmar. The forests cover mountains and valleys in the western Hengduan Mountains and because of the ex ...

* Qionglai-Minshan conifer forests (in the Qionglai and

Min Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Am ...

mountains of central and northern Sichuan; home to Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries)

External links

Mountains of Southwest China (Conservation International)Biodiversity of the Hengduan Mountains and Adjacent Areas of South-Central China (Harvard University Herbaria; Institute of Botany, Beijing; Kunming Institute of Botany; Field Museum of Natural History)
Forests of China Montane forests Palearctic realm Temperate coniferous forests {{ecoregion-stub

See also

External links