Territory, population and topography

The administrative area of Gansu province ranges from 32°31′ to 42°57′ N latitude and from 92°13′ to 108°46′ E longitude. It has a temperate, monsoon-influenced, continental climate with annual temperatures ranging from 0 ℃ to 16 ℃. The altitude varies from 1500 to 3000 meters. Therefore, temperatures vary widely with the sufficient sunshine and the large daily temperature difference. The annual precipitation throughout the province is between 36.6 and 734.9 millimeters, and decreases from southeast to northeast. Affected by monsoon season, precipitation is mostly concentrated in June to August, when it accounts for 50% to 70% of the annual total.

Gansu is located in the intersection of the Loess Plateau, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Inner Mongolia Plateau. It is a mountainous plateau landform that features crisscrossing mountains and different altitudes. The terrain slopes from the southwest to the northeast with a narrow and long topography, which is 1655 kilometers long from east to west, and 530 kilometers wide from north to south. It can be roughly divided into six distinctive regions: Longnan Mountain, the Longdong and Longzhong Loess Plateau, the Gannan Plateau, the Hexi Corridor, Qilian Mountain and the north reaches of the Hexi Corridor. Blessed with the Gobi desert, forest steppes, glaciers and snow peaks, Danxia landforms and canyon caves, the natural scenery is magnificent and adds to the province's reputation among geologists as a museum of rich geological and surface features.