The province of Qinghai in northwestern China borders on Tibet in the south, Xinjiang in the northwest, Gansu in the northeast, and Sichuan in the east. Besides the capital Xining, Golmud, and Delingha are important cities. Qinghai covers the northeast of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a high-elevation region dotted with numerous lakes, mostly salty, and surrounded and subdivided by mountain chains, principally the Qilian Range in the north, the …