China's mountains are a major feature of its physical geography with mountains, plateaus and hills accounting for about 65 percent of the country's landmass. Mountainous areas are home to 90 percent of China's forests, 77 percent of its pastures, 76 percent of its lakes and 98 percent of its hydropower resources. Besides Mount Qomolangma in Tibet, China's most famous mountains include Taishan in Shandong Province, Huangshan in Anhui Province, Emei in Sichuan Province, Lushan in Jiangxi Province, Changbai in Northeast China, Huashan in Shaanxi Province, Wuyi in Fujian Province, Yushan in Taiwan Province and Wutai in Shanxi Province.
The mountainous northwest area of the Three Parallel Rivers National Park in Yunnan Province was added to the World Natural Heritage List on July 2, 2003. Within the boundaries of this 1.7-million-hectare site are eight geographical clusters of protected areas where occurred the major geological events millions of years ago that formed Asia's land surface. Here the upper reaches of three great Asian rivers ? the Yangtze (known in its upper reaches as the Jinsha), Mekong and Salween ? run roughly parallel, north to south, through steep gorges which in places are 3,000 m deep and are bordered by glaciated peaks more than 6,000 m high. UNESCO sited this area of as one of the richest temperate regions of the world in terms of biodiversity.
