Daba Mountains

On top of the Shennong Deng

Daba Mountains, or Dabashan (Chinese: 大巴山; pinyin: Dàbā Shān) is a mountain range in Central China, north of the Yangtze River.

Geography

The Daba Mountains run in the general west-northwest to east-southeast direction, along the border between, on the one side (southwest and south) Sichuan and Chongqing, and on the other side (northeast and north) Shaanxi and Hubei. The mountains of Shennongjia are often considered the easternmost section of the Daba Range.

Morning in Xiqiuwan Township, Badong County

The southern slope of the Daba Mountains drains into the Sichuan Basin or directly into the Yangzte via short streams that flow into the river in the Three Gorges area, such as the Shen Nong Stream. The northern side drains into the Han River, a major tributary of the Yangtze, which, however, does not join the Yangtze until some hundreds kilometers to the east (in Wuhan).

Daba Mountains' highest points are in the Shennongjia massif in Shennongjia Forest District. The three tallest peaks, located west of Muyu town, are Shennong Deng ("Shennong Peak", 3105 m elevation), Da Shennongjia ("Great Shennongjia", 3052 m), and Xiao Shennongjia ("Lesser Shennongjia", 3005 m, on the district's border with Badong County). Laojun Shan, 2936 m tall, is located northeast of Muyu.

In the southeast, the Daba Mountains are joined to the Wu Mountains, which block the Yangtze's flow out of the Sichuan Basin. In the east, the small Jingshan Range (in the southern part of the Xiangfan Prefecture) can be viewed as the extreme extension of the Daba Mountains. In the northeast, the Wudang Mountains are nearby; some authors even consider them a "branch" of the Daba Mountains.^[1]

Natural environment

The natural landscape of the region, the Daba Mountains evergreen forests, is listed by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as one of the world's 200 ecoregions that should be a priority for conservation.^[2] Dabashan National Nature Reserve is located in the Chongqing part of the Daba Mountains (Chengkou County); Shennongjia Mountain Nature Reserve (704 km^2[2]), in Hubei (Shennongjia Forestry District).

The Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) is a deciduous conifer endemic to the Daba Shan, whose nearest living relatives are the Coast Redwood and Giant Sequoia of California. Redwoods formerly ranged across the northern hemisphere, but were thought to be extinct outside California until stands of Dawn Redwood were discovered in the Daba Shan in the 1940’s.^[3]

Plants of the Daba Mountains

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  A forest mushroom (near Muyu, Shennongjia)

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  Decaisnea insignis (at about 2000 m elevation, north of Muyu)

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  Hosta ventricosa

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  Cryptomeria japonica

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  Chinese Red Pine (Pinus tabuliformis), in Xingshan County

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  Cunninghamia lanceolata (center), in Badong County

Land use

Presently, terraced agriculture is expanded in the Daba Mountains. A widely planted cash crop is the Eucommia tree, a medicinal plant.^[4]

References

1. ^ "Wudang Mountains", Atlas of World Heritage: China, Long River Press, 2008, pp. 89–90, ISBN 1592650600, http://books.google.com/books?id=tFRgajxu3wIC&pg=PT99 
2. ^ ^{a b} Daba Mountains evergreen forests (PA0417)
3. ^ "Daba Mountains evergreen forests." WWF Scientific Report. [1] Accessed June 5 2011.
4. ^ Saint-Pierre, Claude (1999), "Building a shared view of future land-use in a project area: terraced agroecosystems in China and the Philippines", in Price, Martin F., Global change in the mountains, Informa Health Care, pp. 180–181, ISBN 1850700621, http://books.google.com/books?id=O6wl1L_LhbUC&pg=PA180