Yin Mountains

The Yin Mountains (simplified Chinese: 阴山; traditional Chinese: 陰山; pinyin: Yīnshān), also known colloquially as the Daqing Mountains (Chinese: 大青山; pinyin: Dàqīngshān), and in Mongolian as Dalan Qara, Dalan Terigün, Dalan Khar, Moni Ayula, and Moni Uul, are mountains in the steppe forming the southern border of the eastern Gobi Desert of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, as well as the northern part of Hebei province.

The range stretches for about 1,000 km, beginning in the south-west as Lang Shan at the northern loop of the Yellow River, rising to some 2300 m above Linhe District, falling to a more modest 1500 m north of Wuyuan, and widening to a broad highland north of Baotou, stretching north-east as far as Jehol.

Chinese sources of 200 BCE report that the range was a stronghold of the Xiongnu ruler Modu Chanyu. The Qin and Han dynasties's Great Wall follows its southern slopes.

The Chinese poet Bai Juyi (772 - 846), who lived under the Tang dynasty wrote a poem on "Yinshan roads".

Among other things, the range is notable for petroglyphs.

References

• Albert Herrmann, Die Gobi im Zeitalter der Hunnen-Herrschaft, Geografiska Annaler (1935).
• Turghun Almas, Uyghurlar, Ürümqi, 1989, ch. V, transl. in Turkish: Uygurlar, Istanbul, 2010.