The Qilian Mountains (, also romanized as Tsilien; Mongghul: Chileb), together with the

Altyn-Tagh Altyn-Tagh (also Altun Mountains, Altun Shan; , Pinyin: ''A'erjin Shan'', Wade–Giles: ''A-erh-chin Shan;'' Uyghur'':ئالتۇن تاغ'') is a mountain range in Northwestern China that separates the Eastern Tarim Basin from the Tibetan P ...

(Altun Shan) also known as Nan Shan (, literally "Southern Mountains"), as it is to the south of

Hexi Corridor The Hexi Corridor (, Xiao'erjing: حْسِ ظِوْلاْ, IPA: ), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China. It refers to a narrow stretch of traversable and rela ...

, is a northern outlier of the Kunlun Mountains, forming the border between

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

and the Gansu provinces of northern China.

Geography

The range stretches from the south of Dunhuang some 800 km to the southeast, forming the northeastern escarpment of the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...

and the southwestern border of the

. The eponymous Qilian Shan peak, situated some 60 km south of

Jiuquan Jiuquan, formerly known as Suzhou, is a prefecture-level city in the northwesternmost part of Gansu Province in the People's Republic of China. It is more than wide from east to west, occupying , although its built-up area is mostly located in i ...

, at , rises to 5,547 m. It is the highest peak of the main range, but there are two higher peaks further south, Kangze'gyai at wit
5,808 m
and Qaidam Shan peak at wit
5,759 m
Other major peaks include

Gangshiqia Peak Gangshiqia Peak () is a high mountain peak in the eastern Qilian Mountains of northeastern Qinghai province. The mountain is located within Menyuan Hui Autonomous County of Haibei Prefecture, and is not far from the Gansu border. Ganshiqia is t ...

in the east. The Nan-Shan range continues to the west as Yema Shan (5,250 m) and Altun Shan (Altyn Tagh) (5,798 m). To the east, it passes north of

Qinghai Lake Qinghai Lake or Ch'inghai Lake, also known by other names, is the largest lake in China. Located in an endorheic basin in Qinghai Province, to which it gave its name, Qinghai Lake is classified as an alkaline salt lake. The lake has fluctuate ...

, terminating as Daban Shan and Xinglong Shan near Lanzhou, with Maoma Shan peak (4,070 m) an eastern outlier. Sections of the Ming Dynasty's Great Wall pass along its northern slopes, and south of northern outlier Longshou Shan (3,616 m). The Qilian mountains are the source of numerous, mostly small, rivers and creeks that flow northeast, enabling irrigated agriculture in the

(Gansu Corridor) communities, and eventually disappearing in the Gobi Desert#Alashan Plateau semi-desert, Alashan Desert. The best known of these streams is the Ejin River, Ejin (Heihe) River. The region has many glaciers, the largest of which is the Touming Mengke. These glaciers have undergone acceleration in their melting in recent decades. The List of terrestrial ecoregions (WWF), characteristic ecosystem of the Qilian Mountains has been described by the World Wildlife Fund as the Qilian Mountains conifer forests. Biandukou (), with an altitude of over 3500 m, is a pass in the Qilian Mountains. It links Minle County of Gansu in the north and Qilian County of Qinghai in the south.

History

The ''Shiji'' mentions the name "Qilian mountains" together with Dunhuang in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi. These ''Qilian Mountains'' however, has been suggested to be the mountains now known as Tian Shan, 1,500 km to the west. ''Dunhuang'' has also been argued to be the Dunhong mountain. ''Qilian'' () is said to be a Xiongnu word meaning "sky" () according to Yan Shigu, a Tang Dynasty commentator on the ''Hanshu''. Sanping Chen (1998) suggested that 天 ''tiān'', 昊天 ''hàotiān'', 祁連 ''qílián'', and 赫連 ''Helian Bobo, Hèlián'' were all cognates and descended from multisyllabic Sinitic languages, Proto-Sinitic *''gh?klien''. Schessler (2014) objects to Yan Shigu's statement that 祁連 was a Xiongnu word; he reconstructs 祁連's pronunciation in around 121 BCE as *''gɨ-lian'', apparently the same etymon as 乾 (☰) the Bague, Trigram for "Heaven", in standard Chinese ''qián'' < Middle Chinese Qieyun, QYS *''gjän'' < Eastern Han Chinese ''gɨan'' < Old Chinese *''gran'', which Schuessler etymologizes as from Proto-Sino-Tibetan and related to Proto-Tibeto-Burman language, Proto-Tibeto-Burman *''m-ka-n'', cognate with Written Tibetan མཁའ (Wylie transliteration: mkha') “heaven”. The Tuyuhun were based around the Qilian mountains. The mountain range was formerly known in European languages as Richthofen Range after Ferdinand von Richthofen, who was Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron's explorer-geologist uncle.Winchester, Simon. (2008). ''The Man Who Loved China: the Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom,'' p. 126. The mountain range gives its name to Qinghai's Qilian County.

References

External links

* Winchester, Simon. (2008). ''The Man Who Loved China: the Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom.'' New York: Harper (publisher), Harper. *
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{{Gansu topics Mountain ranges of China Mountain ranges of Gansu Sites along the Silk Road Landforms of Qinghai Highest points of Chinese provinces