Freshwater
lakes cover an area of 36,000 square kilometers. The Middle-Lower
Changjiang (Yangtze River) region has the most lakes because
it has plenty of rainfall and a low, gentle terrain. The
five largest freshwater lakes are, in order of their size:
Poyang in northern Jiangxi, Dongting in northern Hunan,
Hongze in western Jiangsu, Taihu in southern Jiangsu,
and Chaohu in central Anhui. Hongze Lake is situated in
the Huang-Huai Plain and the four others are all in the
Middle-Lower Changjiang (Yangtze River) Plain. Hebei,
known as the “ province of one thousand lakes”,
leads china’s provinces in number of lakes. Most
of the lakes in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau are fault lakes,
the best-known being Dianchi in eastern Yunnan and Erhai
in western Yunnan. There are a number of freshwater lakes
in the North China and Northeast plains and sizable ones
in Xinjiang and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
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