Northern China (
Chinese ??;
pinyin Beifang) and
Southern China (
Chinese ??;
pinyin Nánfang) are two approximate regions within
China. The exact boundary between these two regions has never been precisely defined. Nevertheless, the self-perception of
Chinese people, especially regional
stereotypes, has often been dominated by these two concepts.
The geographical dividing line between northern and southern China is the Huai River-Qinling Mountains line. This line approximates the 0 degree January isotherm and the 800 mm isohyet in China.
Culturally, however, the division is more ambiguous.In the eastern provinces like Jiangsu and Anhui, however, the Yangtze River may instead be perceived as the north-south boundary instead of the Huai River, but this is a recent development.
There is an ambiguous area, the region around Nanyang, Henan, that lies in the gap where the Qinling has ended and the Huai River has not yet begun; in addition, central Anhui and Jiangsu lie south of the Huai River but north of the Yangtze, making their classification somewhat ambiguous as well. As such, the boundary between northern and southern China does not follow provincial boundaries; it cuts through Shaanxi, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu, and creates areas such as Hanzhong (Shaanxi), Xinyang (Henan), and Xuzhou (Jiangsu) that lie on an opposite half of China from the rest of their respective provinces. This may have been deliberate; the Mongol Yuan Dynasty and Han Chinese Ming Dynasty established many of these boundaries intentionally to discourage regionalist separatism.
