The area of Qinghai Lake is 4625.6 km? .
Qinghai Lake is 15km long, 63km wide and 3196m above sea level. It is the largest inland lake in China, located in the northeast of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the northwest of Xining City, between 99 36 ′ ~ 1 16 ′ east longitude and 36 32 ′ ~ 37 15 ′ north latitude.
There are more than 4 rivers in Qinghai Lake, mainly Buha River, Shaliu River, Uhaalan River and Hallgeir River. The annual runoff of these four rivers reaches 1.612 billion cubic meters, accounting for 86% of the runoff entering the lake. It is an area where fish migrate to spawn and birds are concentrated.
Reasons for the formation of Qinghai Lake
The structure of Qinghai Lake has faulted the lake, and the edge of the lake basin is mostly connected with the surrounding mountains by faults. At the early stage of lake formation, 2 ~ 2 million years ago, it was originally a large fresh water lake, which was connected with the Yellow River system. At that time, the climate was mild and rainy, and the lake was discharged into the Yellow River through the Daotang River in the southeast, which was an outflow lake. Up to 13, years ago, due to neotectonic movement, the surrounding mountains were strongly uplifted. From the end of Pliocene, Sun Moon Mountain and Bison Mountain in the east of the lake rose rapidly, which blocked the Daotang River that had originally flowed into the Yellow River, forcing it to flow into Qinghai Lake from east to west, resulting in Gahai and Erhai, and then separated into sub-lakes such as Haiyan Lake and Shadao Lake.