The 500km-long Lesser Khingan Range is the collective name of all mountains to the north of Songhuajiang River. It joins Yilehuli Mountain in the northwest and reaches the Songhuajiang River in the southeast. Opposite to the Greater Khingan Range to the west, it runs through the mid-north part of Heilongjiang Province, and separates the Heilongjiang River from the Songhuajiang River.
The range covers 130,000km2, about 37% of which is low mountains, 53% is hills, and about 10% is shallow hills and tableland. The elevation is between 500m to 800m. It's one of the major forest areas in China, with a 12.06-million- hectare forest area that stores 450 million m3 of timber.
The Lesser Khingan Range has Korean pine and many other precious tree species. More than 43 million of Korean pine are here, accounting for more than a half of the national total. This is why it is renowned as “the homeland of the Korean pine”. In addition, larch, Mongolian scotch pine, and the three major broadleaf species, namely Manchurian walnut, Manchurian ash, and cork tree, also live here.
In the mountainous forests more than 320 wild herbs grow, such as ginseng, manyprickle acathopanax root, codonopsis, and astragalus; more than 30 wild mountain nuts and fruits such as pine nut, hazel, carya cathayensis sarg., and kiwifruit; and more than 20 wild mountain vegetables such as monkey-head mushroom, agaric, and wild brake.
The forests and valleys of the Lesser Khingan Range are the habitat of more than 50 animal species such as the North Chinese tiger, red deer, moose, black bear, wild boar, lynx, hare, squirrel and weasel, and more than 220 birds like the hazel hen, thunder bird, Chinese merganser, golden eagle, woodpecker, owl and cuckoo.
The information is provided by presentation of "Songliao Basin" from China National Petroleum Corporation.
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