Mount Song (, "loftyMinistry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary (Revised), "Entry 嵩" mountain") is an isolated mountain range in north central China's Henan Province, along the southern bank of the Yellow River. It is known in literary and folk tradition as the central mountain of the Five Great Mountains of China. "It has been considered as the Central of the Five Peaks (*wuyue) since the late Zhou period." Since at least as early as the early 1st millennium BC, Chinese astronomical mythology had acquired the idea that Mount Song is "the centre of Heaven and Earth." It was respected as such by the successive dynasties of the Chinese Empire.
The name Songshan also applies to a peak of the range located at , elevation . It is the 4th highest peak, but second in prominence at . Songshan National Scenic Spot is named after it. The highest peak in the range is Lian Tian Feng at , also most prominent at . It is located at the coordinates shown for the article. On its upper slopes is the Sanhuangzhai Scenic Spot, further west seen from Route G1516 (Yanluo Expressway), which skirts the range on the south. The location is across the Shaoyang valley on the west side of which is Shaolin Monastery. The valley is well populated, in contrast to the forested and precipitous mountains.
The literature associated with this monastery, or "temple" (si) relates two folk-names of the range still in popular use due to their legendary status: Shaoshi Mountain, meaning all peaks west of the valley, and Taishi Mountain, all peaks east of the valley. "It is ranked as one of the Grotto-Heavens (*dongtian) and is usually divided between the Taishi 太 室 and Shaoshi 少室 ranges." Mount Song thus appears to be a two-peak range when actually there are as many as the counter cares to count. The possible number depends on the counter's minimum allowed prominence. PeakVisor, which records reported peaks in a given area, has recorded 44 for Denfeng, the lowest elevation being .
The Internet reports widely that Mount Song comprises 72 peaks, sometimes rounded off to 70. This is a mystical figure taken from the cosmology of the Chan Buddhists. In their ancient myth, Shaoshi and Taishi each have 36 peaks, one set of Yin and one set of Yang, which cancel each other out at the monastery, achieving a zero sum (of what remains speculative). The numbers are not based on counting.
Geography The Qin-Huai Line The Yellow River (Huang He) is the second-largest of China, the first being the Yangtze, which reaches into east Tibet (as does the Yellow). Its numerous tributaries on the way to the East China Sea just above Shanghai water a broad swathe called the Yangtze Delta. Its low-altitude matrix of streams supports the great mass of Chinese people, the most numerous on Earth.
The Yellow River creates a second swathe just north of the Yangtze Delta. It is sometimes said to be in the Delta, but the Yangtze Valley and the Yellow River Valley, both running roughly E-W, are separated from each other by a divide. If it should be breached at any point then one river would capture the other upstream from the breach. Instead they are totally distinct. The Yellow River exits into the Bohai Sea some north of Shanghai.The distances given in this article are straight-line distances obtained from Google Maps with the Distance-measurement tool.
The Yellow River descends from Gyaring Lake in the high plains of Tibet at an altitude of . The distance from the river mouth is . Lowland visitors run the risk of altitude sickness. The shallow lake collects muddy waters from the surrounding grassy plateau made of thick deposits of loess, a fine dust deposited by glacial winds in the remote past. Suspended loess stays in the water, imparting to the river the yellow color after which it is named. Deposition of this dust fills up the riverbed, resulting in course changes and extensive flooding. Frequent dams and reservoirs help control this formerly disastrous problem.
The upper divide is the Qinling Range, a series of ridges trending roughly W-E, more exactly ESE, to the vicinity of Mount Song, which is considered to be in the range. Some consider Mount Song to be in the Funiu Mountains, another subrange of the Qinling, strictly speaking to the south of Mount Song. The distance of a N-S line drawn from the Yellow River at through Shaolin Monastery to the Yangtze River at its exit from Dongdongting Lake is about . The line enters the Yangtze River Valley at Nanyang, . The distance across the divide on that line is therefore . Songshan is on the northern slope of the divide, its south edge being higher than the north. The monastic communities are on its south slopes.
East of Mount Song the divide is not as severe. Through it flows the Huai River (Huai he), which begins about and flows a widely maeandering course to the East China Sea north of Shanghai. Its lower course is totally controlled in long straight lines; in fact, very little of the topography there is natural. The median line of the divide is thus called the Qin-Huai Line, which has more than a geographical significance. As it turns out, the divide is a climate barrier. North of it the climate is temperate and dry; south, subtropical and wet. The two regions have been dubbed "North China" and "South China". Songshan has the North China climate.
The Songshan range The landform (or geoform) that is referenced as Mount Song, or on which Mount Song is defined arbitrarily to be, is a range of irregular shape, more E-W than N-S, generally not located any more precisely than "between the cities of Luoyang and Zhengzhou", or "in Dengfeng 登封 district (Henan), not far from Luoyang". Except for a few islands on the west, the whole landform is prominent and continuous. The professionals - geographers, geologists, archaeologists - refer to the whole thing in English as "the Songshan Mountains". The length from end to end, wherever the topographical map shows a prominence, taking into account the changes of direction, is about from city-edge to city-edge. The width varies considerably. One source gives an average of , with a length rounded off to . Since the global geopark covers the entire area, its estimated area may be taken as the range's area; that is, .
The eastern, or "Taishi" part of the landform extends from the valley to the outskirts of metropolitan Zhengzhou, say to Highway G3001. An axis connecting the two points would head NE and be . A perpendicular axis running from a point on Route S85 to the south to the Yellow River would be . The western, or "Shaoshi" part of the landform, is geomorphologically different. A scimitar-like series of parallel ridges with the convex side facing south extends E-W between the central valley and the city of Luoyang for about . The N-S width on the east is as much as , but at Luoyang it is only a band of hills about N-S in the order of high, with prominences much less. The western extension has another name, Wan'anshan, which is considered a branch of Songshan.
Eastern Mount Song is on the right bank of the Yellow River, but not western. At about the Yellow River merges with a right-bank tributary, the Yi Luo. At about the Yi he ("Yi River") to the south and the Luo he ("Luo River") join to form the Yi Luo he. Western Songshan is on the continuous right bank of the Yi and Yiluo, but not directly. A plain separates them through which the streams from Wan'anshan pass in their northward courses.
An observer at the confluence of the Yi and the Luo looking south to the Wan'anshan would perceive its general prominence over the plain. The confluence has an elevation of about . The terrain of the mountain due south has an elevation of about at away. The elevation at its foot is about . The observer therefore would see a mountain wall above the horizon rising to over the plain. The slope of the plain would be 130/16 m/km or 0.8125%, scarcely different from flat. Once agricultural, the land is suburban Luoyang today.
Climate
Natural and cultural assets of the range and its vicinity Geological Three major orogenies formed the area: The Songyang orogeny of 2.5 billion years ago, the Zhongyue orogeny of 1.85 billion years ago, and the Shaolin orogeny of 570 million years ago. They were named after local attractions in the area. The Songshan Geopark is also called "a textbook of geological history".
Mountaineering The high points of the range form a u-shaped divide between the Yellow-River system draining to the NE and the Huai-River system draining to the SE. The concave side of the u faces south. Around it is a half-ring of high-altitude, high-prominence mountains, "sacred" to the ancient religions of China, which were Taoism and Buddhism. Within the u is the Shaoyang Valley, now part of metropolitan Denfeng, which conducts its daily business, so to speak, in the shadow of the mountains. It contains the remains and reconstructions of the ancient religious buildings, once a revolutionary target of the Chinese Communist Party, now supported by them as the basis of hugely profitable geotourism, geosports and geotheatre industries as well as vacation spot for the working people. + Highest peaks of Mount Song Peak Elev (m) Prom (m) Latitude Longitude Shaoshi/Taishi Zhāo Yuè Fēng 976 52 34.46227 N 112.958576 E Shaoshi Yíng Xiá Fēng 1138 255 34.469532 N 112.958631 E Shaoshi Ruì Yīng Fēng 1018 48 34.465569 N 112.937857 E Shaoshi Qīng Liáng Fēng 1159 53 34.463239 N 112.929083 E Shaoshi Lián Tiān Fēng 1512 1221 34.472416 N 112.934647 E Shaoshi Qióng Bì Fēng 1487 47 34.470582 N 112.931695 E Shaoshi Zǐ Wēi Fēng 1472 13 34.470817 N 112.933883 E Shaoshi Tiān Dé Fēng 1033 25 34.472878 N 112.958058 E Shaoshi Bái Dào Fēng 1485 35 34.473727 N 112.938172 E Shaoshi
Development of the park The first tourist areas The founders of the Republic; i.e., the Nationalist Party, developed a dichotomous policy toward heritage culture. On the one hand it was to be rejected and attacked as "backward". On the other hand, the "movable relics and archaeological sites" were to be proffered as symbols to "strengthen the national identity". This duality led to somewhat arbitrary decisions on what to destroy and what to cherish. Buildings were especially vulnerable. The Shaolin Temple was attacked and conflagrated in 1928 by Shi Yousan, a warlord of the Warlord Era of the revolution, along with many others. Monks everywhere were at risk. On the other hand, a number of new, western-style museums were constructed to house the revered artifacts.
It was during the Republic's sojourn on the mainland that tourism and the designation of public parks began. The concept of a park is very ancient universally (witness the Persian paradeisos), but in China only the upper classes had them. The notion that land could belong to the people or that the people had the right to enjoy themselves there was subversive. The land belonged to a class dubbed "landlords" by the people. Whether the revolution was Nationalist or Communist, the chief target of popular spite was that very class. They were soon answering for their misdeeds in courts of the very people they had ruled, with typically fatal consequences. Their land became the people's property.