Qaidam [Haixi]

Qaidam or Tsaidam , arid basin, c.350 mi (560 km) long and c.100 mi (160 km) wide, between two branches of the Kunlun range, central Qinghai prov., W China. A salt marsh occupies most of the area. Oil fields and refineries are found in W Qaidam, and iron ore is mined in the southern part.

Brown bears, wolves, red foxes, blue sheep, and wooly hares are among the many mammals that dwell in China's Qaidam Basin. What makes this diversity remarkable is that it occurs in one of the driest, coldest places in all of China. The Qaidam Basin (Qaidam is the Mongolian word for salt) consists of desert vegetation on gravelly slopes with scattered shrubs, and a few saline meadows and salt marshes.

The Qaidam Basin is a sunken valley surrounded by the Altun Mountains to the north and the Kunlun Mountains to the south. These and other mountain ranges separate the basin almost completely from arctic moisture and from the South Asian monsoon, which dumps rain on much of the Tibetan Plateau to the south. As a result, average precipitation is only 1 ?inches (35 millimeters) per year in some parts of the basin. Winters are long and very cold, and spring brings high winds and sandstorms. The mean annual temperature is only about 21