Qinghai, culturally grouped with central_and_northeastern China is extreme: the eastern end of the Kunlun Mountains enters the west center of the province where Buka Daban Peak pushes toward 8000 meters. Most of the province is geophysically linked to Tibet: the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau. The Qilian Mountains along and near the Qinghai-Gansu border exceed 6000 meters. The Tanggula(4) Mountains along the opposite border of Qinghai rise equally high. Most of the Hoh Xil Mountains--between the higher Kunluns and Tanggulas, still rise above 4000 meters, and one of the passes through southeastern Qinghai's Bayan Har Mountains is above 4500 meters! Just northeast of that range are the A'nyemaqen(5) Mountains whose tall point breaks 5000 meters, and yet further east the Xiqing Mountains, on the bounds of three provinces, top 4000 meters. The source of the Yellow River, the world's seventh longest, starts here and crosses the eastern province in great turns.
The Yangtze and the Mekong rivers start in southeast Qinghai.
Qinghai has one exception to the pattern: the Qaidam Basin in northwest.
The majority of the more than six million people living here speak Putonghua Chinese and--to the extent they are observant--practice a mix of Buddhism, Confuciansim, Taoism and folk ways, though there is a substantial Moslem minority. There is a substantial minority of Amdo Tibetian speakers in Qinghai. This linguistic minority also tends to belong to a religious one: Lamist Buddhism.
Xining(6) has about 2.209 million residents within the shi (city). It is a high railway and highway terminus, on an old caravanserei route in the Huanshui River valley. Haidong has 1.397 million residents within the shi.In the first millenium BCE, Qiang people, a Tibeto-Burman group, lived in the area. When the Xianbei state disintegrated around 300 CE, people related to the Xianbei moved into the area near Lake Qinghai. Later both Chinese and Tibetans moved in.
north and east(1) Zhongguo in Pinyin transliteration and Chung-hua in Wade-Giles transliteration; translates literally as the Middle Land or Middle Kingdom.
(2) Ch'ing-hai in Wade-Giles transliteration; translates literally as Blue Sea.
(3) Sheng in Wade-Giles transliteration.
(4) Or Gangilha or Dangla.
(5) Or Amne Machin.
(6) Also transliterated from Chinese as Hsi-ning or Sining.