In Mongolian, Qinghai is also known as Kukunaoer, which literally means ‘blue sea’. Qinghai Lake is located in the Qinghai Lake Basin in northeastern Qinghai Province. It is China’s largest inland lake and salt lake. It formed due to fault subsidence between the Datong Mountain and Riyue Mountain areas of the Qilian Mountains and Nanshan Mountain in Qinghai Province. It is 105 km long, 63 km wide, has a circumference of 360 km and covers an area of 4,583 km2. Its deepest part is 38 m deep, and it has a catchment area of approximately 29,661 km2. The lake surface elevation is 3,196 m. The Buha River flows in from the northwest, and the bird’s island is a famous tourist attraction (Fig. 3).
Qinghai Lake landscape
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(2020). Qinghai Lake Landscape. In: Chen, A., Ng, Y., Zhang, E., Tian, M. (eds) Dictionary of Geotourism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2538-0_1992
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2538-0_1992
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