TA-PA MOUNTAINS

WadeGiles romanization Ta-pa Shan, Pinyin Daba Shan, mountain range dividing Szechwan province from Shensi province, China. Like the Tsinling Mountains to the north, from which it is separated by the Han River valley and the basin near Han-chung in Shensi, it is an eastward continuation of the Kunlun Mountains. The Ta-pa range is a broad belt of mountains running roughly northwest to southeast, forming the northern rim of the Szechwan Basin and joining the Wu Mountains of the Yangtze Gorge region in the east. It is not so high or so massive a divide as the Tsinling Mountains, but its average elevation is more than 6,500 feet (2,000 m), while individual peaks in the east and substantial sections of the range further west reach 7,2008,800 feet (2,2002,700 m). It has a very complex river system but generally divides the drainage of the Yangtze River from that of the Han River system. In the west, however, the Chia-ling River, which rises in the Tsinling Mountains, cuts through the Ta-pa Mountains, affording the chief route from Shensi into Szechwan and the Southwest. Much of the range consists of dolomitic limestones. The use of the term Ta-pa Mountains to describe the entire range is an innovation of Western geographers. The term properly applies to the ranges south of the Han-chung area, also called the Pa Mountains. This section is also called the Mi-ts'ang Mountains, after one of its major peaks, Mi-ts'ang (8,110 feet ). The term Chiu-lung (or Chiu-t'iao) Mountains is also sometimes used for the eastern section of the range. In the central section, to the east of Yang-hsien (Shensi), there is a series of high ridges with a north-south axis, known as the Hsing-tzu Mountains. The Ta-pa Mountains are very sparsely peopled, and much of them remain under virgin forest in spite of human settlement that has occurred since the 18th century. The western extremity of the range is comparatively dry and has a lighter forest cover.