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Mount Song ( Chinese : 嵩山 ; pinyin : Sōngshān , "lofty mountain") is an isolated mountain range in north central China's Henan Province , along the southern bank of the Yellow River . It is known in literary and folk tradition as the central mountain of the Five Great Mountains of China . Since at least as early as the early 1st millennium BC, Chinese astronomical mythology had acquired the idea that Mount Song is "the centre of Heaven and Earth." It was respected as such by the successive dynasties of the Chinese Empire.

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94-497: The name Songshan also applies to a peak of the range located at 34°30′38″N 112°56′05″E  /  34.510627°N 112.934647°E  / 34.510627; 112.934647 , elevation 1,492 m (4,895 ft). It is the 4th highest peak, but second in prominence at 869 m (2,851 ft). Songshan National Scenic Spot is named after it. The highest peak in the range is Lian Tian Feng at 1,512 metres (4,961 ft), also most prominent at 1,221 m (4,006 ft). It

188-452: A topographic map . However, when the key col is far away, or when one wants to calculate the prominence of many peaks at once, software can apply surface network modeling to a digital elevation model to find exact or approximate key cols. Since topographic maps typically show elevation using contour lines , the exact elevation is typically bounded by an upper and lower contour, and not specified exactly. Prominence calculations may use

282-628: A warlord of the Warlord Era of the revolution, along with many others. Monks everywhere were at risk. On the other hand, a number of new, western-style museums were constructed to house the revered artifacts. It was during the Republic's sojourn on the mainland that tourism and the designation of public parks began. The concept of a park is very ancient universally (witness the Persian paradeisos), but in China only

376-420: A "closer" peak than the encirclement parent (if there is one), which is still "better" than the peak in question. The differences lie in what criteria are used to define "closer" and "better." The (prominence) parent peak of peak A can be found by dividing the island or region in question into territories, by tracing the two hydrographic runoffs, one in each direction, downwards from the key col of every peak that

470-489: A "hierarchy" of peaks going back to the highest point on the island. One such chain in Britain would read: Billinge Hill → Winter Hill → Hail Storm Hill → Boulsworth Hill → Kinder Scout → Cross Fell → Helvellyn → Scafell Pike → Snowdon → Ben Nevis . At each stage in the chain, both height and prominence increase. Line parentage, also called height parentage, is similar to prominence parentage, but it requires

564-727: A branch of the government. By 1940 they had designated 15 areas for public visitation, the core of the later scenic areas. In 1949 the People's Republic of China began under the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong of the Chinese Communist Party . His party had defeated the forces of the Republic of China (1912–1949) , successor to the Chinese Empire, in the Chinese Communist Revolution , forcing them to move their republic to

658-585: A broad and level lower course. It was long used to irrigate the surrounding farmlands, and was the center of an extensive network of canals and tributaries. Beginning in 1194, however, the Yellow River to the north repeatedly changed its course southwards to run into the Huai River. The resulting silting was so heavy that after the Yellow River changed back to its northerly course for the most recent time in 1897,

752-424: A cutoff to form a list of peaks ranked by elevation is standard and is the most common use of the concept, it is also possible to use prominence as a mountain measure in itself. This generates lists of peaks ranked by prominence , which are qualitatively different from lists ranked by elevation. Such lists tend to emphasize isolated high peaks, such as range or island high points and stratovolcanoes . One advantage of

846-570: A distance of 17,755 km (11,032 miles), as well as the parent of the South Summit of Mount Everest at a distance of 360 m (1200 feet). The key col may also be close to the subject peak or far from it. The key col for Aconcagua, if sea level is disregarded, is the Bering Strait at a distance of 13,655 km (8,485 miles). The key col for the South Summit of Mount Everest

940-489: A given landmass, the highest peak's prominence will be identical to its elevation. An alternative equivalent definition is that the prominence is the height of the peak's summit above the lowest contour line encircling it, but containing no higher summit within it; see Figure 1. The parent peak may be either close or far from the subject peak. The summit of Mount Everest is the parent peak of Aconcagua in Argentina at

1034-408: A great deal of information about the peak's position. In general, the analysis of parents and lineages is intimately linked to studying the topology of watersheds . Alteration of the landscape by humans and presence of water features can give rise to issues in the choice of location and height of a summit or col. In Britain, extensive discussion has resulted in a protocol that has been adopted by

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1128-479: A hierarchy which defines some peaks as subpeaks of others. For example, in Figure ;1, the middle peak is a subpeak of the right peak, which is a subpeak of the left peak, which is the highest point on its landmass. In that example, there is no controversy about the hierarchy; in practice, there are different definitions of parent. These different definitions follow. Also known as prominence island parentage , this

1222-418: A highest submerged col of about 40 m, or only 8888 m below the peak of Everest. As a result, Mauna Kea's prominence might be subjectively more impressive than Everest's, and some authorities have called it the tallest mountain from peak to underwater base. Dry prominence is also useful for measuring submerged seamounts . Seamounts have a dry topographic prominence, a topographic isolation , and

1316-525: A modern state. To the contrary, the leap was too far, too fast. The demands made upon the workers far exceeded their ability to comply. The punishments brought into play for not meeting deadlines amounted to a terror. Economic collapse and social anarchy began. A famine ensued, increasing the death toll of this already sanguinary revolution greatly. It was at this point that Mao made his greatest misjudgements, which, had he not died, would surely have led to his overthrow. He concluded that failure to meet deadlines

1410-417: A native tourism. The sites to be visited were taken from The Encyclopedia of Chinese Scenic Spots and Ancient Relics of 1922. This agency unwittingly acquired a power not given to western agencies: the power to decide what is a scenic spot and what a relic. Travel to one was not possible without government permission and it was the agency that passed it on. After the communists received this agency they made it

1504-530: A negative topographic elevation . Prominence values are accurate to perhaps 100m owing to uncertainties in ocean sounding depths. Huai River The Huai River , formerly romanized as the Hwai , is a major river in East China , about 1,110 km (690 mi) long with a drainage area of 174,000 km (67,000 sq mi). It is located about midway between the Yellow River and Yangtze River ,

1598-409: A prominence cutoff criterion. The height parent is the closest peak to peak A (along all ridges connected to A) that has a greater height than A, and satisfies some prominence criteria. The disadvantage of this concept is that it goes against the intuition that a parent peak should always be more significant than its child. However it can be used to build an entire lineage for a peak which contains

1692-437: A prominence-ranked list is that it needs no cutoff since a peak with high prominence is automatically an independent peak. It is common to define a peak's parent as a particular peak in the higher terrain connected to the peak by the key col. If there are many higher peaks there are various ways of defining which one is the parent, not necessarily based on geological or geomorphological factors. The "parent" relationship defines

1786-468: A select few chosen as national symbols. The anti-tradition side of the dichotomy was not unmitigated. The CPC attempted many times to draw up lists of buildings to be protected or to pass regulations defending heritage sites; however, higher-priority needs always seemed to nullify them. Of especially high priority was Mao's policy of the Great Leap Forward , with which he hoped to transform China into

1880-480: A significant Buddhist presence. It is home to the Shaolin Temple , traditionally considered the birthplace of Zen Buddhism , and the temple's pagoda forest is the largest collection of pagodas in China. The mountain and its vicinity are populated with Taoist and especially Buddhist monasteries. The Zhongyue Temple located there is one of the earliest Taoist temples in the country, and the nearby Songyang Academy

1974-456: A type called "Forest Park." However some of the types were already in existence before the end of the Cold War. The scenic area is a case in point. It is a park protecting scenic views, but open to tourism and some minor changes in support of it, such as a cable car. Having begun under the Republic in the 1920s, scenic areas increased but slowly under provincial dominion during the troubled years of

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2068-677: A u-shaped divide between the Yellow-River system draining to the NE and the Huai-River system draining to the SE. The concave side of the u faces south. Around it is a half-ring of high-altitude, high-prominence mountains, "sacred" to the ancient religions of China, which were Taoism and Buddhism. Within the u is the Shaoyang Valley, now part of metropolitan Denfeng, which conducts its daily business, so to speak, in

2162-479: Is Aconcagua (6,960 m), in Argentina , and its prominence is 6,138 m. (To further illustrate the rising-sea model of prominence, if sea level rose 56 m, North and South America would be separate continents and Denali would be 6138 m, its current prominence, above sea level. At a slightly lower level, the continents would still be connected and the high point of the combined landmass would be Aconcagua,

2256-417: Is about 100 m (330 feet) distant. A way to visualize prominence is to imagine raising sea level so the parent peak and subject peak are two separate islands. Then lower it until a tiny land bridge forms between the two islands. This land bridge is the key col of the subject peak, and the peak's prominence is its elevation from that key col. Prominence is interesting to many mountaineers because it

2350-439: Is an objective measurement that is strongly correlated with the subjective significance of a summit. Peaks with low prominence are either subsidiary tops of some higher summit or relatively insignificant independent summits. Peaks with high prominence tend to be the highest points around and are likely to have extraordinary views. Only summits with a sufficient degree of prominence are regarded as independent mountains. For example,

2444-443: Is becoming preferred. There are two varieties of topographic prominence: wet prominence and dry prominence. Wet prominence is the standard topographic prominence discussed in this article. Wet prominence assumes that the surface of the earth includes all permanent water, snow, and ice features. Thus, the wet prominence of the highest summit of an ocean island or landmass is always equal to the summit's elevation. Dry prominence, on

2538-481: Is considered a branch of Songshan. Eastern Mount Song is on the right bank of the Yellow River, but not western. At about 34°50′08″N 113°03′59″E  /  34.835604°N 113.066483°E  / 34.835604; 113.066483 the Yellow River merges with a right-bank tributary, the Yi Luo. At about 34°40′54″N 112°48′02″E  /  34.681599°N 112.800579°E  / 34.681599; 112.800579

2632-651: Is defined arbitrarily to be, is a range of irregular shape, more E-W than N-S, generally not located any more precisely than "between the cities of Luoyang and Zhengzhou ," or "in Dengfeng 登封 district ( Henan ), not far from Luoyang." Except for a few islands on the west, the whole landform is prominent and continuous. The professionals - geographers, geologists, archaeologists - refer to the whole thing in English as "the Songshan Mountains." The length from end to end, wherever

2726-406: Is defined as follows. In Figure 2 the key col of peak A is at the meeting place of two closed contours, one encircling A (and no higher peaks) and the other containing at least one higher peak. The encirclement parent of A is the highest peak that is inside this other contour. In terms of the falling-sea model, the two contours together bound an "island", with two pieces connected by an isthmus at

2820-404: Is equal to its wet prominence (4205 m) plus the depth of its highest submerged col (about 5125 m). Totaling 9330 m, this is greater than any mountain apart from Everest. The dry prominence of Aconcagua is equal to its wet prominence (6960 m) plus the depth of the highest submerged col of the Bering Strait (about 40 m), or about 7000 m. It is worth noting Mauna Kea

2914-553: Is equal to its wet prominence plus the depth of its highest submerged col. Because Earth has no higher summit than Mount Everest , Everest's prominence is either undefined or its height from the lowest contour line. In a dry Earth, the lowest contour line would be the deepest hydrologic feature, the Challenger Deep , at 10,924 m depth. Everest's dry prominence would be this depth plus Everest's wet prominence of 8848 m, totaling 19,772 m. The dry prominence of Mauna Kea

Mount Song - Misplaced Pages Continue

3008-638: Is located at the coordinates shown for the article. On its upper slopes is the Sanhuangzhai Scenic Spot, further west seen from Route G1516 (Yanluo Expressway), which skirts the range on the south. The location is across the Shaoyang valley on the west side of which is Shaolin Monastery . The valley is well populated, in contrast to the forested and precipitous mountains. The literature associated with this monastery, or "temple" (si) relates two folk-names of

3102-502: Is located within the Songshan Strategerati Graphical Organization & Structural National Geopark. Eight locations at the foot of the mountain in Dengfeng have been a World Heritage Site since 2010. Strictly speaking a geosite is a location of public interest in a geopark . Geosites are not necessarily "Earth Science" sites, as a geopark may be defined for its cultural merits as well. The prefix "geo-"

3196-406: Is more prominent than peak A. The parent is the peak whose territory peak A is in. For hills with low prominence in Britain, a definition of "parent Marilyn " is sometimes used to classify low hills ("Marilyn" being a British term for a hill with a prominence of at least 150 m). This is found by dividing the region of Britain in question into territories, one for each Marilyn . The parent Marilyn

3290-549: Is natural. The median line of the divide is thus called the Qin-Huai Line, which has more than a geographical significance. As it turns out, the divide is a climate barrier. North of it the climate is temperate and dry; south, subtropical and wet. The two regions have been dubbed "North China" and "South China." Songshan has the North China climate. The landform (or geoform) that is referenced as Mount Song, or on which Mount Song

3384-581: Is not included, as it was already urban Dengfeng. In 1982 along with the scenic areas the State Council ratified a new type of PA, the Forest park or area, devised by the State Planning Commission (subsequent National Development and Reform Commission ), also dividing such parks into provincial and national, with a third type, county. The IUCN standards that apply are II, V, and VI. The purpose of

3478-522: Is not limited to the park; it may refer to items related to a park but not actually in it. The Songshan WHS was designed to include 367 buildings in eight groups arranged around the inside perimeter of the Shaoyang Valley. In contrast to the Songshan Scenic Area, the WHS is actually in the valley and occupies locations of downtown Dengfeng, although often in sequestered grounds. The mountain also features

3572-457: Is not used because there is no obvious choice of cutoff. This choice of method might at first seem arbitrary, but it provides every hill with a clear and unambiguous parent peak that is taller and more prominent than the hill itself, while also being connected to it (via ridge lines). The parent of a low hill will also usually be nearby; this becomes less likely as the hill's height and prominence increase. Using prominence parentage, one may produce

3666-572: Is relatively close to its submerged key col in the Pacific Ocean, and the corresponding contour line that surrounds Mauna Kea is a relatively compact area of the ocean floor. Whereas a contour line around Everest that is lower than 9330m from Everest's peak would surround most of the major continents of the Earth. Even just surrounding Afro-Eurasia would run a contour line through the Bering Straight, with

3760-568: Is said to have had some ancient tombs filled with concrete. On Mao's death in 1976 the chairmanship was assumed by his vice-chairman, Hua Guofeng , who stopped the cultural revolution by arresting Mao's co-conspirators, the Gang of Four . In 1978 the Central Committee made Deng Xiaoping paramount leader . He had been sidelined by Mao for his opposition to the Cultural Revolution but now he

3854-677: Is the Marilyn whose territory the hill's summit is in. If the hill is on an island (in Britain) whose highest point is less than 150 m, it has no parent Marilyn. Prominence parentage is the only definition used in the British Isles because encirclement parentage breaks down when the key col approaches sea level. Using the encirclement definition, the parent of almost any small hill in a low-lying coastal area would be Ben Nevis , an unhelpful and confusing outcome. Meanwhile, "height" parentage (see below)

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3948-630: Is the second-largest of China, the first being the Yangtze , which reaches to the east into Tibet (as does the Yellow). Its numerous tributaries on the way to the East China Sea just above Shanghai water a broad E-W swathe called the Yangtze Delta . Its low-altitude matrix of streams supports the great mass of Chinese people, the most numerous on Earth. The Yellow River creates a second swathe just north of

4042-576: The Funiu Mountains , another subrange of the Qinling, strictly speaking to the south of Mount Song. The distance of a N-S line drawn from the Yellow River at 34°49′54″N 112°58′14″E  /  34.83161°N 112.97044°E  / 34.83161; 112.97044 through Shaolin Monastery to the Yangtze River at its exit from Dongdongting Lake is about 608 km (378 mi). The line enters

4136-553: The Soviet Union in 1991 brought a swift end to the cold war. The borders of the People's Republic were opened. The Chinese people everywhere began to express a spontaneous and passionate interest in preserving the cultural and natural heritage of China and making it available to the rest of the world. In parallel to other countries they began to establish parks, which were brought under the umbrella of " protected areas (PA's)." This category

4230-626: The CPC remained in power and was the only party allowed. Ironically the Red Guard was instructed to save and protect the very antiquities they had been created to destroy, too late for a large part of them. The People's Republic changed course, which was formally sanctified in 1982 with the Law on the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the People's Republic of China, the title of which says it all. The internal collapse of

4324-577: The Forest Park is to protect the forest. Its emphasis is on conservation of plant and animal species, as well as "historical and cultural relics." Recreation and education may be conducted there. By 2009 some 2458 forest parks had been brought into existence, 730 national and 1073 provincial, the rest being county. They are administered by the State Forest Administration. That year they were visited by 332 million tourists. The Shaolin Monastery

4418-680: The Island of Taiwan . As the United States had aided and abetted the Republic, it became the antagonist of the People's Republic in the succeeding Cold War . The communists collectivized Chinese economic undertakings, dividing the workers into work units , or collectives , on the Soviet model. In the chairman's view, tourism was unnecessary, and so therefore were tourist sites. "Heritage sites" had no value as such and were converted to other purposes. Similarly ancient artifacts were destroyed as well, except for

4512-678: The Sanhe River by way of the Gaoyou Lake and Shaobo Lake , emptying into the Yangtze River at Sanjiangying (三江营) near Yangzhou . There is also a passage called the Huaihe Sea Entryway and Subei Irrigation Canal that passes Huai'an and empties into the sea at Biandan Port. A separate course runs north by way of the Huaimu River and Huai Shu River and connects the Huai River system with

4606-461: The U.S., 2000 ft (610 m) of prominence has become an informal threshold that signifies that a peak has major stature. Lists with a high topographic prominence cutoff tend to favor isolated peaks or those that are the highest point of their massif ; a low value, such as the Nuttalls', results in a list with many summits that may be viewed by some as insignificant. While the use of prominence as

4700-794: The Xinyi River (part of the Yishusi River system) which exits into the sea at Guanyun in Lianyungang . In part to circumvent flooding, in Jiangsu province the Huai River system is interconnected with different waterways and thereby forms part of the Grand Canal . Historically, the Huai River entered the Yellow Sea at Yunti Pass (modern day Yunti Village, in Huangwei Town of Xiangshui County ) through

4794-731: The Yangtze Delta. It is sometimes said to be in the Delta, but the Yangtze Valley and the Yellow River Valley, both running roughly E-W, are separated from each other by a divide. If it should be breached at any point then one river would capture the other upstream from the breach. Instead they are totally distinct. The Yellow exits into the Bohai Sea some 744 km (462 mi) north of Shanghai. The Yellow River descends from Gyaring Lake in

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4888-464: The Yangtze River Valley at Nanyang, 33°15′25″N 113°00′32″E  /  33.25682°N 113.00890°E  / 33.25682; 113.00890 . The distance across the divide on that line is therefore 164 km (102 mi). Songshan is on the northern slope of the divide, its south edge being higher than the north. The monastic communities are on its south slopes. East of Mount Song

4982-544: The Yi he ("Yi River") to the south and the Luo he ("Luo River") join to form the Yi Luo he. Western Songshan is on the continuous right bank of the Yi and Yiluo, but not directly. A plain separates them through which the streams from Wan'anshan pass in their northward courses. An observer at the confluence of the Yi and the Luo looking south to the Wan'anshan would perceive its general prominence over

5076-522: The area suffering droughts in between floods. In the 450 years to 1950, the Huai River saw, on average, 94 major floods per century. Attempts to solve the Huai River's problems have focused on building outlets for the Huai River into the Yangtze River and the sea. Currently, the major part of the river's flow enters the Yangtze River via Lake Hongze. The North Jiangsu Main Irrigation Canal also diverts some of its water along its old historical course to

5170-408: The child peak. For example, one common use of the concept of parent is to make clear the location of a peak. If we say that Peak A has Mont Blanc for a parent, we would expect to find Peak A somewhere close to Mont Blanc. This is not always the case for the various concepts of parent, and is least likely to be the case for encirclement parentage. Figure 3 shows a schematic range of peaks with

5264-480: The civil war. Mao maintained them but did not improve them. Under the law of 1982 the government organized the scenic areas into provincial or province-level and national or state-level (ratified by the State Council), the latter being an upgrade of the former. A national scenic area (in translation a national park, though bona fide national parks came later) was held to stricter standards, not meeting which would cause

5358-410: The color underlying the minor peaks indicating the encirclement parent. In this case the encirclement parent of M is H whereas an intuitive view might be that L was the parent. Indeed, if col "k" were slightly lower, L would be the true encirclement parent. The encirclement parent is the highest possible parent for a peak; all other definitions indicate a (possibly different) peak on the combined island,

5452-403: The convex side facing south extends E-W between the central valley and the city of Luoyang for about 46 km (29 mi). The N-S width on the east is as much as 10 km (6.2 mi), but at Luoyang it is only a band of hills about 4 km (2.5 mi) N-S in the order of 300 m (980 ft) high, with prominences much less. The western extension has another name, Wan'anshan, which

5546-482: The disadvantage in using the encirclement parent. A hill in a low-lying area like the Netherlands will often be a direct child of Mount Everest , with its prominence about the same as its height and its key col placed at or near the foot of the hill, well below, for instance, the 113-meter-high key col of Mont Blanc . When the key col for a peak is close to the peak itself, prominence is easily computed by hand using

5640-508: The divide is not as severe. Through it flows the Huai River (Huai he), which begins about 32°26′35″N 113°19′31″E  /  32.443119°N 113.325352°E  / 32.443119; 113.325352 and flows a widely maeandering course to the East China Sea north of Shanghai. Its lower course is totally controlled in long straight lines; in fact, very little of the topography there

5734-475: The encirclement parent.) While it is natural for Aconcagua to be the parent of Denali, since Denali is a major peak, consider the following situation: Peak A is a small hill on the coast of Alaska, with elevation 100 m and key col 50 m. Then the encirclement parent of Peak A is also Aconcagua, even though there will be many peaks closer to Peak A which are much higher and more prominent than Peak A (for example, Denali). This illustrates

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5828-527: The geographical dividing line between northern and southern China . This line approximates the 0 °C (32 °F) January isotherm and the 800 millimeters (30 in) isohyet in China. The Huai River originates in Tongbai Mountain in Henan province . It flows through southern Henan, northern Anhui , and northern Jiangsu where it pools into Lake Hongze . Nowadays the Huai River then runs southwards as

5922-451: The geography of the Huai River basin was changed significantly by the creation of new high lands, lakes, and the built-up silt of the Yellow River's historical southern course. As a result, water from the midsection of the river could not easily flow into the lower section, while water in the lower section could not find an outlet to the sea. The problem worsened in the Second World War , when the Nationalist government, in an attempt to check

6016-440: The height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it. It is a measure of the independence of a summit . The key col ("saddle") around the peak is a unique point on this contour line and the parent peak is some higher mountain, selected according to various criteria. The prominence of a peak is the least drop in height necessary in order to get from

6110-443: The high contour (giving in a pessimistic estimate ), the low contour (giving an optimistic estimate), their mean (giving a "midrange" or "rise" prominence ) or an interpolated value (customary in Britain). The choice of method depends largely on the preference of the author and historical precedent. Pessimistic prominence, (and sometimes optimistic prominence) were for many years used in USA and international lists, but mean prominence

6204-415: The high plains of Tibet at an altitude of 4,293 m (14,085 ft). The distance from the river mouth is 1,965 km (1,221 mi). Lowland visitors run the risk of altitude sickness . The shallow lake collects muddy waters from the surrounding grassy plateau made of thick deposits of loess , a fine dust deposited by glacial winds in the remote past. Suspended loess stays in the water, imparting to

6298-401: The key col. The encirclement parent is the highest point on this entire island. For example, the encirclement parent of Mont Blanc , the highest peak in the Alps , is Mount Everest . Mont Blanc's key col is a piece of low ground near Lake Onega in northwestern Russia (at 113 m (371 ft) elevation), on the divide between lands draining into the Baltic and Caspian Seas . This is

6392-405: The land is suburban Luoyang today. Three major orogenies formed the area: The Songyang orogeny of 2.5 billion years ago, the Zhongyue orogeny of 1.85 billion years ago, and the Shaolin orogeny of 570 million years ago. They were named after local attractions in the area. The Songshan Geopark is also called "a textbook of geological history". The high points of the range form

6486-435: The landform extends from the valley to the outskirts of metropolitan Zhengzhou , say to Highway G3001. An axis connecting the two points would head NE and be 55 km (34 mi). A perpendicular axis running from a point on Route S85 to the south to the Yellow River would be 115 km (71 mi). The western, or "Shaoshi" part of the landform, is geomorphologically different. A scimitar-like series of parallel ridges with

6580-459: The list, or cutoff . John and Anne Nuttall's The Mountains of England and Wales uses a cutoff of 15 m (about 50 ft), and Alan Dawson's list of Marilyns uses 150 m (about 500 ft). (Dawson's list and the term "Marilyn" are limited to Britain and Ireland). In the contiguous United States, the famous list of " fourteeners " (14,000 foot / 4268 m peaks) uses a cutoff of 300 ft / 91 m (with some exceptions). Also in

6674-491: The lowest elevation being 959 m (3,146 ft). The Internet reports widely that Mount Song comprises 72 peaks, sometimes rounded off to 70. This is a mystical figure taken from the cosmology of the Chan Buddhists. In their ancient myth, Shaoshi and Taishi each have 36 peaks, one set of Yin and one set of Yang, which cancel each other out at the monastery, achieving a zero sum (of what remains speculative). The numbers are not based on counting. The Yellow River (Huang He)

6768-435: The main sources of prominence data in Britain and Ireland. Other sources of data commonly ignore human-made alterations, but this convention is not universally agreed upon; for example, some authors discount modern structures but allow ancient ones. Another disagreement concerns mountaintop removal , though for high-prominence peaks (and for low-prominence subpeaks with intact summits), the difference in prominence values for

6862-420: The meeting place of two 113 m (371 ft) contours, one of them encircling Mont Blanc; the other contour encircles Mount Everest. This example demonstrates that the encirclement parent can be very far away from the peak in question when the key col is low. This means that, while simple to define, the encirclement parent often does not satisfy the intuitive requirement that the parent peak should be close to

6956-448: The one hand it was to be rejected and attacked as "backward." On the other hand, the "movable relics and archaeological sites" were to be proffered as symbols to "strengthen the national identity". This duality led to somewhat arbitrary decisions on what to destroy and what to cherish. Buildings were especially vulnerable. The Shaolin Temple was attacked and conflagrated in 1928 by Shi Yousan ,

7050-402: The other hand, ignores water, snow, and ice features and assumes that the surface of the earth is defined by the solid bottom of those features. The dry prominence of a summit is equal to its wet prominence unless the summit is the highest point of a landmass or island, or its key col is covered by snow or ice. If its highest surface col is on water, snow, or ice, the dry prominence of that summit

7144-537: The pace of the Japanese invasion, flooded the lower Huai basin by opening the Yellow River's southern levee. The main stem of the Yellow River flowed through the levee breach for the next nine years, further disrupting the Huai river system. The result of these changes was that water from the Huai River pooled up into Lake Hongze , and then ran southwards towards the Yangtze River. Major and minor floods occurred frequently, with

7238-429: The park to drop to a provincial. Currently IUCN standards II, III, and V apply. At the time there were to be 44 scenic areas, each containing one or more scenic spots, or scenic places within scenic areas. Songshan was placed in the national category. In 1986 it received a Master Plan formulated by Tongji University , which was ratified in 1990 by the State Council of the People's Republic of China . Shaolin Monastery

7332-454: The people's property. The western idea of a tourist agency that would book visits to scenic areas soon sparked a revolutionary counterpart in China. The China Travel Service was founded by Cheng Guanfu in 1927 under the authority of the Republic at the height of its anti-tradition phase. Its purpose was to take the travel business out of the hands of foreigners and provide the Chinese people with

7426-488: The plain. The confluence has an elevation of about 110 m (360 ft). The terrain of the mountain due south has an elevation of about 556 m (1,824 ft) at 16 km (9.9 mi) away. The elevation at its foot is about 240 m (790 ft). The observer therefore would see a mountain wall above the horizon rising to 446 m (1,463 ft) over the plain. The slope of the plain would be 130/16 m/km or 0.8125%, scarcely different from flat. Once agricultural,

7520-439: The range still in popular use due to their legendary status: Shaoshi Mountain, meaning all peaks west of the valley, and Taishi Mountain, all peaks east of the valley. Mount Song thus appears to be a two-peak range when actually there are as many as the counter cares to count. The possible number depends on the counter's minimum allowed prominence . PeakVisor, which records reported peaks in a given area, has recorded 44 for Denfeng,

7614-488: The river the yellow color after which it is named. Deposition of this dust fills up the riverbed, resulting in course changes and extensive flooding. Frequent dams and reservoirs help control this formerly disastrous problem. The upper divide is the Qinling Range, a series of ridges trending roughly W-E, more exactly ESE, to the vicinity of Mount Song, which is considered to be in the range. Some consider Mount Song to be in

7708-416: The sea, and is planned to be upgraded with a new parallel channel. Several former tributaries also carry some water to the sea. There are many tributaries of the Huai River. There are 15 main tributaries cover an area of more than 2,000 square kilometers (770 sq mi) each, and 21 main tributaries have a catchment area larger than 1,000 square kilometers (390 sq mi). The main tributaries on

7802-569: The shadow of the mountains. It contains the remains and reconstructions of the ancient religious buildings, once a revolutionary target of the Chinese Communist Party, now supported by them as the basis of hugely profitable geotourism, geosports and geotheatre industries as well as vacation spot for the working people. The founders of the Republic; i.e., the Nationalist Party , developed a dichotomous policy toward heritage culture. On

7896-431: The summit to any higher terrain. This can be calculated for a given peak in the following manner: for every path connecting the peak to higher terrain, find the lowest point on the path; the key col (or highest saddle , or linking col , or link ) is defined as the highest of these points, along all connecting paths; the prominence is the difference between the elevation of the peak and the elevation of its key col. On

7990-473: The topographical map shows a prominence, taking into account the changes of direction, is about 104 km (65 mi) from city-edge to city-edge. The width varies considerably. One source gives an average of 60 km (37 mi), with a length rounded off to 100 km (62 mi). Since the global geopark covers the entire area, its estimated area may be taken as the range's area; that is, 450 km (170 sq mi). The eastern, or "Taishi" part of

8084-497: The two conventions is typically relatively small. The key col and parent peak are often close to the sub-peak but this is not always the case, especially when the key col is relatively low. It is only with the advent of computer programs and geographical databases that thorough analysis has become possible . For example, the key col of Denali in Alaska (6,194 m) is a 56 m col near Lake Nicaragua . Denali's encirclement parent

8178-518: The two longest rivers and largest drainage basins in China. Historically draining eastwards directly into the Yellow Sea , erosion from floods have changed the course of the river such that it now primarily discharges into the Yangtze. The Huai River is, to this day, notoriously vulnerable to flooding. The Qinling–Huaihe Line , formed by the Huai River and the Qin Mountains , is sometimes regarded as

8272-463: The upper classes had them. The notion that land could belong to the people or that the people had the right to enjoy themselves there was subversive. The land belonged to a class dubbed "landlords" by the people. Whether the revolution was Nationalist or Communist, the chief target of popular spite was that very class. They were soon answering for their misdeeds in courts of the very people they had ruled, with typically fatal consequences. Their land became

8366-418: The world's second-highest mountain is K2 (height 8,611 m, prominence 4,017 m). While Mount Everest 's South Summit (height 8,749 m, prominence 11 m ) is taller than K2, it is not considered an independent mountain because it is a sub-summit of the main summit (which has a height and prominence of 8,848 m). Many lists of mountains use topographic prominence as a criterion for inclusion in

8460-707: Was adopted in China by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in 1994 as part of its first Biodiversity Action Plan after China's becoming signatory in the United Nations ' Convention on Biological Diversity . The plan currently in effect is the second, adopted 2010: The National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan (2011–2030). It is being supplemented by an increasing number of county plans. By 2018 there were more than 11,800 PA's in China of 17 different types. Tourism increased in record proportions. For example, in 2017 some 826 million tourists visited 3505 PA's of

8554-478: Was an act of sabotage conducted by secret capitalist enemies of the communist state, including party members. Hence began the 10-year cultural revolution , the worst terror of all. Recruiting the Red Guards from the youth, Mao set them against tradition and the more established members of the party. In essence they had the power to kill or destroy anyone or anything they pleased. A great many antiquities were lost. Mao

8648-404: Was featured as a scenic spot. Funds were allocated to restore it (It had burned down in 1928). Other scenic spots are Songyang Academy, Zhongyue Temple, Star Observatory, Daxiongshan Xianren Valley, Fanjia Gate, and Zhaixing Tower. This scenic area was not the whole range. Shaped like bean, its concave side faces the south. Shaoshi and Taishi are the masses on the side, as far as they go. The valley

8742-754: Was one of the four great academies of ancient China. The 6th century Songyue Pagoda is also located on the mountain, as well as Tang dynasty (618–907) pagodas within the Fawang Temple . Empress Wu performed the Feng Shan ritual at Mt. Song in 695 CE. [REDACTED] Media related to Mount Song at Wikimedia Commons Prominence In topography , prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height , and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures

8836-508: Was rehabilitated to establish a market economy. Deng's main concern was the Constitution of the People's Republic of China . There was one in 1954, another is 1976, and Deng promulgated a third in 1978 with the full support of the Party. There would be another in 1982, and five revisions after. The 1978 and 1982 constitutions normalized the government, and emphasized personal rights and freedom, but

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