The Daba Mountains, also known by their Chinese name as the Dabashan, are a mountain range in Central China between the watersheds of the

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

and

Yangtze River 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 ...

s. Part of the larger Qinling mountain range, it cuts through four provinces:

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 ...

Chongqing ChongqingPostal Romanization, Previously romanized as Chungking ();. is a direct-administered municipality in Southwestern China. Chongqing is one of the four direct-administered municipalities under the State Council of the People's Republi ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to t ...

, and

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

. It spans about .

Geography

The Daba Mountains run in the general west-northwest to east-southeast direction, along the border between, on the one side (southwest and south)

and

, and on the other side (northeast and north)

and

. The mountains of

Shennongjia Shennongjia Forestry District ( zh, s=神农架林区, p=Shénnóngjià Línqū) is a county-level administrative unit (a "forestry district") in northwestern Hubei province, People's Republic of China, directly subordinated to the provincial gover ...

are often considered the easternmost section of the Daba Range. The southern slope of the Daba Mountains drains into the

Sichuan Basin The Sichuan Basin (), formerly transliterated as the Szechwan Basin, sometimes called the Red Basin, is a lowland region in southwestern China. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is drained by the upper Yangtze River and its tributar ...

or directly into the Yangtze via short streams that flow into the river in the

Three Gorges The Three Gorges () are three adjacent and sequential gorges along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River path, in the hinterland of the People's Republic of China. With a subtropical monsoon climate, they are known for their scenery. The T ...

area, such as the Shen Nong Stream. The northern side drains into the Han River, a major tributary of the Yangtze, which, however, does not join the Yangtze until some hundreds kilometers to the east (in

Wuhan Wuhan; is the capital of Hubei, China. With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the List of cities in China by population, eighth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine National cent ...

). The Daba Mountains' highest points are in the Shennongjia

massif A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...

Forest District. The three tallest peaks, located west of

Muyu Muyu may refer to: * Muyu people, an indigenous ethnic group of Western New Guinea ** Muyu language * Wooden fish (), an Asian percussion instrument usually associated with Buddhist monks * Muyu, Hubei (), a town of Shennongjia, Hubei, China * Muyu ...

town, are Shennong Deng ("Shennong Peak", elevation), Da Shennongjia ("Great Shennongjia", ), and Xiao Shennongjia ("Lesser Shennongjia", , on the district's border with

Badong County Badong County () is a county located in western Hubei province, People's Republic of China, bordering Chongqing municipality to the west. It is the northernmost county-level division under the administration of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Pref ...

). Laojun Shan, tall, is located northeast of Muyu. In the southeast, the Daba Mountains are joined to the

Wu Mountains Wuxia Gorge (), sometimes called Great Gorge (), is the second gorge of the Three Gorges system on the Yangtze River, People's Republic of China. Formed by the Wu River, it stretches from Wushan to Guandukou, and is located downstream of ...

, which block the Yangtze's flow out of the

. In the east, the small Jingshan Range (in the southern part of the

Xiangyang Xiangyang is the second-largest prefecture-level city by population in northwestern Hubei province, China. It was known as Xiangfan from 1950 to 2010. The Han River (Hanshui), Han River runs through Xiangyang's centre and divides the city n ...

Prefecture) can be viewed as the extreme extension of the Daba Mountains. In the northeast, the Wudang Mountains are nearby; some authors even consider them a "branch" of the Daba Mountains. In the rural counties of southern

Hanzhong Hanzhong ( zh, s= , t= , l=middle of the Han River (Hubei), Han River; abbreviation: Han) is a prefecture-level city in Southern Shaanxi, the southwest of Shaanxi, Shaanxi province, China, bordering the provinces of Sichuan to the south and Gans ...

, in Shaanxi Province, there is a large area of

karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

with some of the largest sinkholes in the world, known as the Shaanxi tiankeng cluster or "Hanzhong tiankeng group". It covers nearly 5019 square kilometers and is located in four counties, Ningqiang County, Nanzheng County, Xixiang County, and Zhenba County, with the largest sinkhole (520 meters in diameter and 320 meters deep), near Sanyuanzhen () in Zhenba County.

Natural environment

The natural landscape of the region, the Daba Mountains evergreen forests, is listed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as one of the world's 200 ecoregions that should be a priority for conservation. Dabashan National Nature Reserve is located in the Chongqing part of the Daba Mountains ( Chengkou County); Shennongjia Mountain Nature Reserve (), in

(

Forestry District). The Dawn Redwood (''Metasequoia glyptostroboides'') is a deciduous conifer endemic to the Daba Shan, whose nearest living relatives are the Coast Redwood and Giant Sequoia of California. Redwoods formerly ranged across the northern hemisphere, but were thought to be extinct outside California until stands of Dawn Redwood were discovered in the Daba Shan in the 1940s. Plants of the Daba Mountains File:VM 5248 Muyu hills forest mushroom.jpg, A forest mushroom (near

, Shennongjia) File:VM 5356 G209 north of Muyu - bean tree.jpg, '' Decaisnea insignis'' (at about elevation, north of Muyu) File:VM 5262 Muyu hills forest - blue flowers.jpg, ''

Hosta ''Hosta'' (, synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Funkia'') is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies and occasionally by the Japanese name gibōshi. Hostas are widely cultivated as shade-tolerant foliage plants. The genus is placed ...

ventricosa'' File:VM 5352 G209 north of Muyu - mountain conifer.jpg, '' Cryptomeria japonica'' File:VM 5156 G209 Wujiaping to Baishahe (Xingshan County).jpg, Chinese red pine ('' Pinus tabuliformis''), in Xingshan County File:VM 5083 Xiqiuwan xiang Baishawan cun fields.jpg, '' Cunninghamia lanceolata'' (center), in

Land use

Presently, terraced agriculture is expanded in the Daba Mountains. A widely planted cash crop is the Eucommia tree, a medicinal plant.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Mountain ranges of Sichuan Landforms of Chongqing Landforms of Shaanxi Mountain ranges of Hubei Mountain ranges of China