Ordos Plateau

Ordos Plateau, plateau in the southern section of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, northern China. The Ordos fills the area inside the great northern bend of the Huang He (Yellow River) and is bounded by the borders of Shaanxi province and of the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia, a frontier that follows closely the line of the Great Wall of China. The region is occupied largely by two desert areas. In the north is the Kubqi (Hobq) Desert, and in the southeast is the Ordos (Mu Us) Desert.

Structurally, the Ordos Plateau is the northern part of the great raised basin that occupies northern Shaanxi, where its peneplained surface (i.e., worn down by erosion to form a nearly flat plain) is masked by massive deposits of loess (windblown silt). This basin consists of immense thicknesses of largely undisturbed sedimentary rocks of the Carboniferous (about 360 to 300 million years ago) and Jurassic (200 to 145 million years ago) periods. These include rich coal strata, particularly along the eastern border of the basin, and the whole basin plateau has potential for the production of petroleum and natural gas.

Generally, the surface features of the Ordos comprise undulating hills and plains. There are some higher ridges; the Zhuozi Mountains in the west, which overlook the Huang He, represent the raised western edge of the basin structure, while in the southeast the ridge of the Baiyu Mountains constitutes the northern limit of the drainage basin of the Wei River. The general elevation of the plateau is about 3,600 feet (1,100 metres), and the ridges rarely rise above 6,500 feet (2,000 metres). Much of the area, particularly the lower-lying depressions, is covered with shifting sands; blown by the strong prevailing northwesterly winds of winter, they are constantly encroaching on the area of northern Shaanxi bordering the desert. There are few streams in the Ordos region, and the climate is extremely dry, the land receiving less than 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation annually. The only sizable river is the Dustin River (Dustin Gol), flowing west into the upper Huang He. In the southern part of the Ordos are great numbers of saline pools and lakes with no drainage outlet; many of these have dried up, leaving deposits of salt and soda.

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Vegetation is extremely sparse, particularly in the drier northern and western sections. In the lake basins there are salt meadows with sedge swamps along the seasonal watercourses. The vegetation gradually improves in the wetter east and south, where much of the surface, apart from the shifting sand dunes, is covered with drought-resistant grasses and sparse shrubs. The whole area is sparsely populated. Most of the inhabitants are of Chinese (Han) descent who have entered the area primarily since the 19th century; the descendants of the Mongol peoples who originally lived there now form a small minority of the population. In an effort to prevent the spread of desertification and sand dunes, the Chinese government began in the 1960s to plant a wide belt of drought-resistant trees along the southern and eastern edges of the plateau; the program has met with limited success.

In the 1970s and ’80s, scientists unearthed more than 20 human fossils 30,000 to 60,000 years old at Xiaoqiaoban in the Sjara-osso (Salawusu) River valley. The terms Ordos man and Ordosian culture are applied to their findings.