The heart of the province is the Songhua River Valley. The river starts in a volcanic crater in the Changbai Mountains and flows north across the province. Its plain, the Songliao, is part of the Northeast China Plain. (The name comes from the Songhua and Liao rivers.) The inland edges of the plain fade to desert: akali marsh and sand dunes. Southern Jilin is mountainous and hilly. The Changbai (Everwhite) Range is just above the Korean border, and there are other low ranges and hills further west.
Along the Korean border are two other rivers, the Tumen, flowing northeast, and the Yalu, flowing southwest.The largest lake is a reservoir on the Songhua River, but the most famous is Tianchi (Heavenly Lake) in the crater of Baitou Mountain(3), the source of the Songhua and the Yalu.
Jilin, in central_and_northeastern China has a city bearing its name, and also has its capital, Changchun. Other cities (shi) with a million or more residents are Siping, Liaoyuan, Tonghua, Baishan, Songyuan and Baicheng.
northeast
east from the northeast
southeast
southwest
west
(1) Chi-lin in Wade-Giles transliteration; translates literally as Magic Forest.
(2) Sheng in Wade-Giles transliteration.
(3) Called Paektu Mountain by Koreans.