Ordos Plateau

The Ordos Plateau, also known as the Ordos Basin or simply the Ordos, is a highland sedimentary basin in parts of most Northern China with an elevation of , and consisting mostly of land enclosed by the Ordos Loop, a large northerly rectangular bend of the Yellow River. It is China's second largest sedimentary basin (after the Tarim Basin) with a total area of , and includes territories from five provinces, namely Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and a thin fringe of Shanxi (western border counties of Xinzhou, Lüliang and Linfen), but is demographically dominated by the former three, hence is also called the Shaan-Gan-Ning Basin. The basin is bounded in the east by the Lüliang Mountains, north by the Yin Mountains, west by the Helan Mountains, and south by the Huanglong Mountains, Meridian Ridge and Liupan Mountains. The name "Ordos" (Mongolian: ) comes from the orda, which originally means "palaces" or "court" in Old Turkic. The seventh largest prefecture of Inner Mongolia, Ordos City, is similarly named due to its location within the Ordos Loop. The Ming Great Wall cuts southwesternly across the center of the Ordos region, roughly separating the sparsely populated north (or "upper Ordos", which is actually lower in elevation than the "lower Ordos" south) — considered the Ordos proper — from the agricultural south (or "lower Ordos", i.e. northern part of the Loess Plateau). The north Ordos consists mainly of the arid Ordos Desert (subdivided into the Mu Us and Kubuqi deserts), which is administered by Inner Mongolia's Ordos City, but the floodplains along the banks of Ordos Loop's northern bends are fertile grasslands historically known as the Hetao Plains ("river loop" plains), which is subdivided into the "west loop" (within Ningxia) and "east loop" (within Inner Mongolia, further divided into "front loop" and "back loop") sections. The Inner Mongolian cities of Hohhot (provincial capital), Baotou, Bayannur and Wuhai (its third, fourth, eighth and eleventh most populous prefectures respectively), and all of Ningxia's cities except Guyuan, are all located on these riverside plains along the Hetao region.

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Related concepts (35)

Ordos culture

The Ordos culture () was a material culture occupying a region centered on the Ordos Loop (corresponding to the region of Suiyuan, including Baotou to the north, all located in modern Inner Mongolia, China) during the Bronze and early Iron Age from the 6th to 2nd centuries BCE. The Ordos culture is known for significant finds of Scythian art and may represent the easternmost extension of Indo-European Eurasian nomads, such as the Saka, or may be linkable to Palaeo-Siberians or Yeniseians.

Hetao

Hetao () is a C-shaped region in northwestern China consisting of a collection of flood plains stretching from the banks of the northern half of the Ordos Loop, a large northerly rectangular bend of the Yellow River, that forms the river's entire middle section. The region makes up the northern margin of the Ordos Basin, bounded in the west by the Helan Mountains, the north by the Yin Mountains, the east by the northern portion of Lüliang Mountains, and the south by the Ordos Desert and the Loess Plateau (separated by the course of the Ming Great Wall).

Ordos Plateau