Greater Khingan Mountains

or Tahsinganling, a mountain system in northeastern China and also in the eastern Mongolian People’s Republic. The system’s length is approximately 1,200 km, and the width is up to 400 km. The predominant height is 800–1,200 m; the highest altitude is 2,034 m (Huangkang Mountains). The summits are flat; the western slope is short and gently sloping, and the eastern slope is long, more steep, and broken into numerous spurs. The mountain system is composed mostly of granite, rhyolite, and and esite. In the northern part of the Greater Khingan Mountains there is permafrost and marsh land associated with the permafrost. Almost the whole northern half of the Greater Khingan Mountains is covered by light-coniferous taiga (predominantly of Dahurian larch); to the south the taiga gradually turns into mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests, replaced after that by forest-steppe and steppe. Along the river valleys far into the north are steppe meadows. Part of the commonly accepted boundary between monsoon East Asia and arid Central Asia runs along the Greater Khingan Mountains.