South of the corridor is the

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Shandong and Liaodong peninsulas, the coast is sandy and flat.China is prone to intense seismic activity throughout much of the country. The main source of this geologic instability is the result of the constant northward movement of the Indian tectonic plate beneath southern Asia, which has thrust up the towering mountains and high plateaus of the Chinese southwest. Throughout its history China has experienced hundreds of massive earthquakes that collectively have killed millions of people. Two in the 20th century alone—in eastern Gansu province (1920) and in the city of Tangshan.


eastern Hebei province (1976)—caused some 250,000 deaths each, and a quake in east-central Sichuan province Northeast Mobile Number List in 2008 killed tens of thousands and devastated a wide area.China’s physical relief has dictatedits development in many respects. The civilization of Han Chinese originated in the southern part of the Loess Plateau, and from there it extended outward until it encountered the combined barriers of relief and climate. The long, protruding corridor, commonly known as the Gansu, or Hexi, Corridor, illustrates this fact.






South of the corridor is the Plateau of Tibet, which was too high and too cold for the Chinese to gain a foothold. North of the corridor is the Gobi Desert, which also formed a barrier. Consequently. , Chinese civilization was forced to spread along the corridor, where melting snow and ice in the Qilian Mountains provided water for oasis farming. The westward extremities of the corridor became the meeting place of the ancient East and West.Thus, for a long time the ancient political center of China was located along the lower reaches of the Huang He (Yellow River). Because of topographic barriers, however, it was difficult for the central government to gain