Hanzhong Basin or Hanzhong Pendi (), reputed to be "a land of fish and rice", is a

geographic region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...

located in the southern

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...

. Hanzhong Basin is a large-scale Cenozoic faulted basin, and an important agricultural

area Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an ope ...

of southern

Shaanxi province Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ni ...

Landforms

Hanzhong Basin, located in the southwestern Shaanxi, is the largest faulted basin in the upper reaches of the Han River, with the

Qinling Mountains The Qinling () or Qin Mountains, formerly known as the Nanshan ("Southern Mountains"), are a major east–west mountain range in southern Shaanxi Province, China. The mountains mark the divide between the drainage basins of the Yangtze and Yellow ...

to the north and the

Daba Mountains 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 and Yangtze Rivers. Part of the larger Qinling mountain range, it cuts through four provinces: Si ...

to the south. The basin is about 116 km long from east to west and 5~25 km wide from north to south, with a total area of about 2700 km².

Irrigation

The basin has a long history of

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

, dating back to the first century AD.

Human activities

The era of ancient human activities in the Hanzhong Basin began as late as 600,000 years ago.

References

{{Reflist Landforms of Shaanxi Landforms of Asia Basins of Asia Geography of Shaanxi Geography of Western China Geography of Asia