Hebei

Relief

Hebei province consists of two almost equal sections: the northern part of the North China Plain and the mountain ranges along the northern and western frontiers. The former is sometimes called the Hebei Plain. It is formed largely by the alluvial deposits of the five principal tributaries of the Hai River system, which converge on and then (as the Hai proper) flow past Tianjin to the sea. Two of them, the Yongding and the Chao, flow down from the northern highlands. The other three have their sources in the western and southern part of Hebei: the Daqing and Ziya rivers and the Southern Grand Canal (Nan Yunhe).

The Hebei Plain slopes gently from west to east. It is bounded by the Yan Mountains on the north, the Taihang Mountains to the west, and the Bo Hai to the east. The mountains have at their base a string of alluvial fans. This inner belt of the Hebei Plain is generally well drained. Until the late 20th century the groundwater level usually was fairly close to the surface and was easily tapped for domestic water and irrigation. However, since then overuse has lowered the water table, necessitating deeper wells.

The Yan Mountains form the northern rim of the North China Plain, displaying to the traveler an endless sea of rounded hills, with peaks averaging 4,900 feet (1,500 metres) above sea level. The Great Wall of China zigzags along its crests. Beyond these mountains the Mongolian Plateau stretches from the northernmost part of Hebei province to Mongolia. This part of Hebei was incorporated into the province in 1952, when Hebei’s boundaries were extended beyond the North China Plain for the first time. The rim of the plateau has an average elevation of 3,900 to 4,900 feet (1,200 to 1,500 metres) and is rugged and inhospitable to human settlement. Between the Yan Mountains are large basin plains, cultivated and well inhabited. Coal and iron are mined in the northern mountains.

To the west of the North China Plain sprawls the lofty north-south range of the Taihang Mountains, separating the Hebei Plain from the Shanxi Plateau, its highest peak rising above 9,000 feet (2,750 metres). The range is pierced by a number of west-east streams whose narrow valleys (the famous “Eight Gorges” of Taihang) are the routes of highways and railroads between the Hebei Plain and the Shanxi Plateau.

Drainage and soils

The major Hebei rivers flow down from the loess-covered Taihang Mountains and the Shanxi Plateau. They carry a heavy load of silt after the summer downpours, depositing it in the shallow channels downstream on the plain, gradually silting them up and causing widespread floods in low-lying areas. Since 1949 vigorous measures for water control and soil conservation have been carried out together with reforestation in the upland areas. Numerous dams, generally small to medium-size, have been built upstream and in the tributaries to conserve the water for irrigation and other uses; flood-retention basins and storage reservoirs have been built downstream. The Duliujian River, connecting the Daqing to the sea, helps to drain the extremely low-lying tract around the large Baiyang Lake and the Wen’an Marsh. Water from the streams is used to wash away excess salt in the alkaline soil and to make it arable. Similar jian he (“reducing streams”) have been completed for the Southern Grand Canal.

The Hai River is only 35 miles (55 km) long, from the city of Tianjin to the sea, but the drainage basin of its five tributaries covers two-thirds of the province. A number of flood-control and power-generation projects have been developed in the Hai basin, including reservoirs to the northeast and northwest of Beijing. Another major river is the Luan, which drains northeastern Hebei. A major project of the 1980s was the construction of a diversion channel carrying water from the Luan to Tianjin. All the major Hebei rivers empty into the Bo Hai, a shallow sea with an average depth of only 100 feet (30 metres). The water and nutrient matter brought down by the rivers nourish a rich marine fauna. In winter the surface water along the coast is frozen, but navigation is possible with the use of icebreakers. There are three important ports: Tianjin, which is about 35 miles up the Hai, Tanggu, and the major coal-handling and oil-shipping port of Qinhuangdao.

The most common soil in the Hebei Plain is dark brown earth developed on loessial alluvium, modified by cultivation over several millennia. It is extremely fertile—the famous “good earth”—yielding crops with little fertilization for thousands of years. New alluvium is distributed in the areas along the rivers by frequent flooding. In the mountains the soils vary: the upland hills have leached dark brown soils, the more humid mountainous areas of the Yan and Taihang ranges have brown forest soils suited to fruit trees, and the northernmost Zhangbei plateau has light chestnut zonal soils.