Mountains

China's mountains are a major feature of its physical geography with mountains, plateaus and hills accounting for about 65 percent of the country's landmass. Mountainous areas are home to 90 percent of China's forests, 77 percent of its pastures, 76 percent of its lakes and 98 percent of its hydropower resources. Besides Mount Qomolangma in Tibet, China's most famous mountains include Taishan in Shandong Province, Huangshan in Anhui Province, Emei in Sichuan Province, Lushan in Jiangxi Province, Changbai in Northeast China, Huashan in Shaanxi Province, Wuyi in Fujian Province, Yushan in Taiwan Province and Wutai in Shanxi Province.

The mountainous northwest area of the Three Parallel Rivers National Park in Yunnan Province was added to the World Natural Heritage List on July 2, 2003. Within the boundaries of this 1.7-million-hectare site are eight geographical clusters of protected areas where occurred the major geological events millions of years ago that formed Asia's land surface. Here the upper reaches of three great Asian rivers ? the Yangtze (known in its upper reaches as the Jinsha), Mekong and Salween ? run roughly parallel, north to south, through steep gorges which in places are 3,000 m deep and are bordered by glaciated peaks more than 6,000 m high. UNESCO sited this area of as one of the richest temperate regions of the world in terms of biodiversity.

Rivers and Lakes

China has over 1,500 rivers. Most of the major rivers - like the Yangtze - have their source on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and drop greatly from the source to the mouths. As a result, China is rich in water-power resources, leading the world in hydropower potential, with reserves of 680 million kw.

Known as Chang Jiang or "Long River" in Chinese, the Yangtze at 6,300 km is not only the longest river in China but in all of Asia. It is the third longest river in the world, next only to the Nile in Africa (6,670 km) and the Amazon in South America (6,400 km).

Also known as the "golden waterway," the Yangtze serves as an important trade and transportation route. The second longest river in China is the Yellow River with a length of 5,464 km. The Yellow River valley was one of the birthplaces of ancient Chinese civilization. It has lush pasturelands along its banks, flourishing agriculture and abundant mineral deposits.

The Heilong River is a large river in north China with a total length of 4,350 km, of which, 3,101 km are in China. The Pearl River (Zhujiang), 2,214 km long, is a major river in south China. In addition, China has a famous man-made river - the Grand Canal, running from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province in the south. Work first began on the Grand Canal as early as in the fifth century A.D. It links five major rivers: the Haihe, Yellow, Huaihe, Yangtze and Qiantang. With a total length of 1,801 km, the Grand Canal is the longest as well as the oldest man-made waterway in the world.

China's many rivers can be categorized as exterior and interior systems. The catchment area for the exterior rivers that empty into the oceans accounts for 64 percent of the country's total land area. The Yangtze, Yellow, Heilong, Pearl, Liaohe, Haihe and Huaihe rivers flow east, and empty into the Pacific Ocean. The Yarlungzangbo River in Tibet, which flows first east and then south into the Indian Ocean, boasts the Yarlungzangbo Grand Canyon, the largest canyon in the world, 504.6 km long and 6,009 m deep. The Ertix River flows north from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the Arctic Ocean. The catchment area for the interior rivers that flow into inland lakes or disappear into deserts or salt marshes makes up about 36 percent of China's total land area. Its 2,179 km makes the Tarim River in southern Xinjiang China's longest interior river.

Plants and Animals

Among those countries with the greatest diversity of wildlife, China has more than 6,266 species of vertebrates, 10 percent of the world's total. Among them 2,404 are terrestrials and 3,862 fishes. More than 100 species of wild animals can be found only in China, including such rare animals as the giant panda, the snub-nosed monkey, the golden-haired monkey, South China tiger, brown-eared pheasant, red-crowned crane, red ibis, white-flag dolphin and Chinese alligator. The giant panda, which makes its home in the forests of the Upper Yangtze River in southwest China, weighs on average 135 kg and lives on tender bamboo leaves and bamboo shoots. Because it is extremely rare - just over 1,000 are left at present - the giant panda has become the symbol of the world's protected wild animals.

China's abundance of plant life ranks it among the top in the world. China's plant species include almost all the major plants that grow in the northern hemisphere's frigid, temperate and tropical zones. In addition, China has more than 7,000 species of woody plants, including 2,800-odd tree species. Found only in China are the metasequoia, Chinese cypress, Cathay silver fir, China fir, golden larch, Taiwan fir, Fujian cypress, dove-tree, eucommia and camplotheca acuminata. The metasequoia, a tall species of arbor, is considered to be one of the oldest and rarest plants in the world. The golden larch, one of only five species of rare garden trees in the world, grows in the mountainous areas in the Yangtze River Valley. Its coin-shaped leaves on short branches are green in spring and summer, turning yellow in autumn. China is home to more than 2,000 species of edible plants and over 3,000 species of medicinal plants. Ginseng from the Changbai Mountains, safflowers from Tibet, Chinese wolfberry from Ningxia and notoginseng from Yunnan and Guizhou are particularly well-known Chinese herbal medicines. China has a wide variety of flowering plants, including the world-renowned peony that is indigenous to China and considered one of the country's national flowers.