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The Daba Mountains, also known by their Chinese language name as the Dabashan, are a mountain range in Central China between the watersheds of the Yellow River and . Part of the larger Qin Mountains, it cuts through four provinces: Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, and Hubei. It spans about .
The southern slope of the Daba Mountains drains into the Sichuan Basin or directly into the Yangtze via short streams that flow into the river in the Three Gorges area, such as the Shen Nong Stream. The northern side drains into the Han River, a major tributary of the Yangtze, which, however, does not join the Yangtze until some hundreds kilometers to the east (in Wuhan).
The Daba Mountains' highest points are in the Shennongjia massif in Shennongjia Forest District. The three tallest peaks, located west of Muyu town, are Shennong Deng ("Shennong Peak", elevation), Da Shennongjia ("Great Shennongjia", ), and Xiao Shennongjia ("Lesser Shennongjia", , on the district's border with Badong County). Laojun Shan, tall, is located northeast of Muyu.
In the southeast, the Daba Mountains are joined to the Wu Mountains, which block the Yangtze's flow out of the Sichuan Basin. In the east, the small Jingshan Range (in the southern part of the Xiangyang Prefecture) can be viewed as the extreme extension of the Daba Mountains. In the northeast, the Wudang Mountains are nearby; some authors even consider them a "branch" of the Daba Mountains.
In the rural counties of southern Hanzhong, in Shaanxi Province, there is a large area of karst with some of the largest sinkholes in the world, known as the Shaanxi tiankeng cluster or "Hanzhong tiankeng group". It covers nearly 5019 square kilometers and is located in four counties, Ningqiang County, Nanzheng County, Xixiang County, and Zhenba County, with the largest sinkhole (520 meters in diameter and 320 meters deep), near Sanyuanzhen (δΈε ι) in Zhenba County.
The Dawn Redwood ( Metasequoia glyptostroboides) is a deciduous conifer endemic to the Daba Shan, whose nearest living relatives are the Coast Redwood and Giant Sequoia of California. Redwoods formerly ranged across the northern hemisphere, but were thought to be extinct outside California until stands of Dawn Redwood were discovered in the Daba Shan in the 1940s.
Flora of the Daba Mountains
insignis (at about elevation, north of Muyu)]]]]]]]]
Land use
Presently, terraced agriculture is expanded in the Daba Mountains. A widely planted cash crop is the Eucommia tree, a medicinal plant.
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