severe. Through it flows the Huai River (Huai he), which begins about and flows a widely maeandering course to the East China Sea north of Shanghai. Its lower course is totally controlled in long straight lines; in fact, very little of the topography there is natural. The median line of the divide is thus called the Qin-Huai Line, which has more than a geographical significance. As it turns out, the divide is a climate barrier. North of it the climate is temperate and dry; south, subtropical and wet. The two regions have been dubbed "North China" and "South China." Songshan has the North China climate. The Songshan range The landform (or geoform) that is referenced as Mount Song, or on which Mount Song is defined arbitrarily to be, is a range of irregular shape, more E-W than N-S, generally not located any more precisely than "between the cities of Luoyang and Zhengzhou," or "in Dengfeng 登封 district (Henan), not far from Luoyang." Except for a few islands on the west, the whole landform is prominent and continuous. The professionals - geographers, geologists, archaeologists - refer to the whole thing in English as "the Songshan Mountains." The length from end to end, wherever the topographical map shows a prominence, taking into account the changes of direction, is about from city-edge to city-edge. The width varies considerably. One source gives an average of , with a length rounded off to . Since the global geopark covers the entire area, its estimated area may be taken as the range's area; that is, . The eastern, or "Taishi" part of the landform extends from the valley to the outskirts of metropolitan Zhengzhou, say to Highway G3001. An axis connecting the two points would head NE and be . A perpendicular axis running from a point on Route S85 to the south to the Yellow River would be . The western, or "Shaoshi" part of the landform, is geomorphologically different. A scimitar-like series of parallel ridges with the convex side facing south extends E-W between the central valley and the city of Luoyang for about . The N-S width on the east is as much as , but at Luoyang it is only a band of hills about N-S in the order of high, with prominences much less. The western extension has another name, Wan'anshan, which is considered a branch of Songshan. Eastern Mount Song