The Qiliang Mountain

The Qilian Mountainsis a northern outlier of the Kunlun Mountains, forming the border between Qinghai and the Gansu provinces of northern China.

The range stretches from the south of Dunhuang some 800 km to the southeast, forming the northeastern escarpment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the southwestern border of the Gansu Corridor.

The Qilian mountains are the source of numerous, mostly small, rivers and creeks that flow northeast, enabling irrigated agriculture in the Gansu Corridorcommunities, and eventually disappearing in the Alashan Desert. The best known of these streams is the Ejin (Heihe) River.

The characteristic ecosystem of the Qilian Mountains has been described by the World Wildlife Fund as the Qilian Mountains conifer forests.