The Yanshan or Yan Mountains are a major mountain range north of the North China Plain

North China Plain

The North China Plain is based on the deposits of the Yellow River and is the largest alluvial plain of eastern Asia. The plain is bordered on the north by the Yanshan Mountains and on the west by the Taihang Mountains edge of the Shanxi plateau. To the south, it merges into the Yangtze Plain...

, in northern Hebei

Hebei

' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...

 Province.

The range rises between the Chaobai River on the west and the famous Shanhai Pass

Shanhai Pass

Shanhai Pass , or Shanhaiguan, along with Jiayu Pass and Juyong Pass, is one of the major passes of the Great Wall of China It is located in Shanhaiguan District, Qinhuangdao, Hebei. In 1961, Shanhaiguan became a site of China First Class National Cultural Site.It is a popular tourist destination,...

 on the east. It is made up mostly of limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

, granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 and basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually grey to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet. It may be porphyritic containing larger crystals in a fine matrix, or vesicular, or frothy scoria. Unweathered basalt is black or grey...

. Its altitude ranges from 400 to 1000 meters. The main peak, Mount Wuling, is 2116 m above sea level

Sea level

Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

 and is located north of Xinglong County

Xinglong County

Xinglong County is a county of Hebei, China. It is under the administration of the Chengde city.-Administrative Divisions:Towns:*Xinglong Town , Maoshan , Liudaohe , Gualanyu , Banbishan , Ping'anbao , Beiyingfang...

 in Hebei. The range contains many narrow passes, such as Gubei Pass, Xifeng Pass and Leng Pass. The eastern stretch of the Great Wall of China

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups...

, including Badaling

Badaling

Badaling is the site of the most visited section of the Great Wall of China, approximately northwest of urban Beijing city in Yanqing County, which is within the Beijing municipality. The portion of the wall running through the site was built during the Ming Dynasty, along with a military...

 in northern Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, can be found on the Yanshan Mountains. The mountains are also an important traffic gateway between north and south. The Mount Wuling Natural Reserve is located here.