Mount Xiao or Mount Yao () is a range of mountains in western

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

north of the Luo River and south of

Sanmenxia Sanmenxia (; postal: Sanmenhsia) is a prefecture-level city in the west of Henan Province, China. The westernmost prefecture-level city in Henan, Sanmenxia borders Luoyang to the east, Nanyang to the southeast, Shaanxi Province to the west and Sh ...

. Major peaks include Qīnggǎngfēng (青崗峰; 1903 m) and Guānyúnshān (冠雲山; 1666 m). The range is part of the Xiáo () historical region on the border of Hénán and

Shānxī Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level ...

provinces in China. The area between Yáo and the strategic

Hángǔ Pass Hangu Pass or Hanguguan is a pass separating the upper Yellow River and Wei valleys—the cradle of Chinese civilization and seat of its longtime capital Xi'an—from the fertile North China Plain. It lies on the south bank of the Yellow River ...

was called Xiáohán ().

Name

The place is also famous because there is a dispute over the

pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...

of its name. According to one of the most authoritative

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

dictionaries, the ''

Cihai The ''Cihai'' is a large-scale dictionary and encyclopedia of Standard Mandarin Chinese. The Zhonghua Book Company published the first ''Cihai'' edition in 1938, and the Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House revised editions in 1979, 1989, ...

'' (), ''xiáo'' should be ''yáo'' according to ancient pronunciation. However, other dictionaries such as ''

Ciyuan The ''Ciyuan'' or ''Tz'u-yüan'' was the first major Chinese dictionary linguistically structured around words (''ci'' ) instead of individual characters (''zi'' ) used to write them. The Commercial Press published the first edition ''Ciyuan'' ...

'' (), ''

Xīnhuá Zìdiǎn The ''Xinhua Zidian'' (), or ''Xinhua Dictionary'', is a Chinese language dictionary published by the Commercial Press. It is the best-selling Chinese dictionary and the world's most popular reference work. In 2016, Guinness World Records offic ...

'', '' Hànyǔ Dà Cídiǎn'', and '' Xiàndài Hànyǔ Cídiǎn'' use the pronunciation of ''xiáo''.新編高中語文課本指誤(論壇精華帖)-溫州教學文摘

References

Landforms of Henan Mountain ranges of China {{China-stub