Loess Plateau in Northern Shaanxi

To the west of Yellow River, south of Mu Us Desert, north of Mount Qiaoshan, and east of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Gansu Province, there is a vast and glamorous area known as the Loess Plateau. The northern Shaanxi lies to the south of the Ordos platform, whose strata is mainly composed of the arenaceous shale of the Mesozoic Era, with the basement hardly seen above the surface and unobvious vertical differentiation. Covered with the Pleistocene loess and loess sediments, the Loess Plateau rose above the Guanzhong Plain as a result of the gradual lift in the neotectonics movement. It stretches along Yulin and Yan’an, covering an area of 83,000 square kilometers, 40% of the total area of the province, and its average elevation is 800—1800 meters. The vast expanse of interlacing ravines and rolling mountains looks just like a magnificent painting.