Huabei Pingyuan
The first-settled, most intensively cultivated, and most heavily populated
part of China, including most of
Some important cities other than the the province-level shi are
Jinan,
Jining,
Suzhou,
Tangshan,
Shijiazhuang,
Zhengzhou,
Kaifeng,
Nanjing,
and
Hangzhou.
Although the plain is interrupted in a few places by mountain ranges
(most notably the ones in Shandong), the plain consists of the alluvial
deposits of the Huang He, the Huai He, and to a lesser extent, the
Chang Jiang (aka the "Yangtze River"). Most of the work has been done
by the Huang He, whose course (including the location of its mouth) has
migrated several hundred miles north and south over the centuries.
The plain also bears the scars of several millennia of intensive agriculture
and drainage modification. There are lakes, the remnants of floods that
happened centuries ago (and some recent ones that happened deliberately), and hundreds of rivers that flow in ancient courses
of the Huang He. The Grand Canal, or Yun He, also cuts through the
plain from north (Tianjin) to south (Hangzhou).
Most of the Plain is too far north for the cultivation of rice, and
its principal crops are corn, winter wheat, and gaoliang.
Fertilization is necessary to grow crops here, as the soil has been worked
for so long that without assistance, it serves only to hold the plants
up.
The northern and southern extremes of the plain, around Beijing, Tianjin,
and Shanghai, are highly industrialized.
Source:
A Geography of China class, half-lost in the mists of time.
The Times Atlas of China, whose spellings were all in Wade
Giles.