Helan Mountains
The Ordos Plateau, also known as the Ordos Basin or simply the Ordos, is a highland sedimentary basin in northwest China with an elevation of , and consisting mostly of land enclosed by the Ordos Loop, a large northerly rectangular bend of the Yellow River that makes up the river's entire middle section. It is China's second largest sedimentary basin (after the Tarim Basin) with a total area of , and includes territories from five provinces, namely Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and a thin fringe of Shanxi (western border counties of Xinzhou, Lüliang and Linfen), but is demographically dominated by the former three, hence is also called the Shaan-Gan-Ning Basin. The basin is bounded in the east by the Lüliang Mountains, north by the Yin Mountains, west by the Helan Mountains, and south by the Huanglong Mountains, Meridian Ridge and Liupan Mountains.