Ordos Plateau

Highland sedimentary basin in northwest China The Yellow River loop covering the Ordos Plateau Ordos PlateauChinese nameTraditional Chinese鄂爾多斯Simplified Chinese鄂尔多斯TranscriptionsStandard MandarinHanyu PinyinÈěrduōsīWade–GilesÊ4-êrh3-to1-ssŭ1Mongolian nameMongolian CyrillicᠣᠷᠳᠣᠰOrdos The Ordos Plateau, also known as the Ordos Basin, the Ordos, or the Shaan-Gan-Ning Basin, is a highland sedimentary basin in parts of northernmost China with an elevation of 1,000–1,600 m (3,300–5,200 ft), and consisting mostly of land enclosed by the "Ordos Loop", a northerly rectangular bend of the Yellow River. It is China's second largest sedimentary basin (after the Tarim Basin) with a total area of 370,000 km2 (140,000 sq mi). The Ordos includes territories from five provinces: 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 the area is sometimes 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 Hua