Vegetation Change in China

The terrain of China gradually descends from west to east like a three-step staircase.

Two-thirds of the country are mostly mountains and high plateaus.

As we can see in China topography map below, the first step is Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Qaidam Basin. Their color is brown in the map and the average altitude is above 4,000 meters.

The second step is Inner Mongolia and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau as well as the Tarim, Sichuan and Junggar basins. Their color is yellow in the map and the average altitude is from 1000 to 2000 meters.

The third step is Manchurian (Dongbei) Plain, the North China Plain, delta of the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) River and the delta of the Pearl (Zhu) River. It shows green and most elevation is below 500 meters.

China is a large country. Its surface land of China is 9,598,080 km2. It is located in Eastern Asia on the western shore of the Pacific Ocean.China may be divided roughly into a lowland portion in the east, and a larger section consisting of mountains and plateaus in the west.