Wushao Mountain, Wushao Ling Mountain or Wushaoling () is a

landform A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, ...

Gansu Province Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibeta ...

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 ...

, with significant

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

elements on its northern slope. The mountain has been a barrier to transportation since ancient times, when the

Northern Silk Road The Northern Silk Road is an ancient trackway in northern China originating in the early capital of Xi'an and extending north of the Taklamakan Desert to reach the ancient kingdoms of Parthia, Bactria and eventually Persia and Rome. It is the nort ...

found a passage across its terrain. The western slope of Wushao Ling combined with adjoining slopes of

Lanshan Mountain Lanshan may refer to: *Lanshan County (), Yongzhou, Hunan *Lanshan District, Rizhao (), Shandong ** Lanshan Port () *Lanshan District, Linyi (), Shandong **, Lanshan District, Linyi * Lanshan, Jiangsu (), town in and subdivision of Suining County, ...

comprises over 30 percent of the desert area of China. Given the current trend in China's land use policies,

desertification Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused by ...

of the Wushao Ling slopes and other Chinese deserts is projected to expand. Donald A. Wilhite, ''Drought Assessment, Management, and Planning: Theory and Case Studies'', 1993, Springer Publishing, 316 pages
The mountain range is crossed by: *

China National Highway 312 China National Highway 312 (312国道), also referred to as Route 312 or The Mother Road, is a key east-west route beginning in Shanghai and ending at Khorgas, Xinjiang in the Ili River valley, on the border with Kazakhstan. In total it spans , pa ...

, through the Wushaoling Pass (3030 m) *

G30 Lianyungang–Khorgas Expressway The Lianyungang–Khorgas Expressway (), designated as G30 and commonly referred to as the Lianhuo Expressway (), is

, through a tunnel * Lanzhou–Xinjiang high-speed railway, through the

Wushaoling Tunnel The Wushaoling Tunnel () is a 21.05 km dual-bore railway tunnel in Gansu, north-west China. The east-bound bore opened on 30 March 2006. The second bore opened in August 2006. It was briefly the longest railway tunnel in China until the openi ...

(21.05 km)

Climate

Mount Wushao has a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, ge ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''Dwc''). The average annual temperature in Mount Wushao is . The average annual rainfall is with July as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in July, at around , and lowest in January, at around .

References

Mountains of Gansu Landforms of Gansu {{Gansu-geo-stub