The geomorphological characteristics of the Loess Plateau are: ravines are vertical and horizontal, and mountains, valleys and basins are alternately distributed. The terrain is undulating, uneven and fragmented from a distance. The loess plateau is high in the northwest and low in the southeast, and fluctuates from northwest to southeast. The Loess Plateau, located in the north-central part of China, is one of the four plateaus in China.
The Loess Plateau is 1000 km long from east to west and 750 km wide from north to south, including the vast areas west of Taihang Mountain, east of Sun Moon Mountain in Qinghai Province, north of Qinling Mountain and south of the Great Wall. It is located on the second step of China, with an altitude of 800-3000m.
The loess plateau in a broad sense is the loess area, covering an area of 635,000 square kilometers, including 38 1.000 square kilometers of primary loess and 254,000 square kilometers of secondary loess, which are mainly composed of Shanxi Plateau, Shaanxi-Gansu-Shaanxi Plateau, Longzhong Plateau, Ordos Plateau and Hetao Plain.
In a narrow sense, the Loess Plateau starts from the Great Wall in the north, the Qinling Mountains in the south, Wushaoling Mountain in the west and Taihang Mountain in the east, including most of Shanxi, north-central Shaanxi, central and eastern Gansu, southern Ningxia and eastern Qinghai, covering an area of about 300,000 square kilometers.
The Loess Plateau is an important energy and chemical base in China. Loess has fine particles, soft soil and rich mineral nutrition, which is beneficial to farming. Basin and valley agriculture has a long history.