The Daba Mountains run in the general west-northwest to east-southeast direction, along the border between, on the one side (southwest and south)
Sichuan and
Chongqing, and on the other side (northeast and north)
Shaanxi and
Hubei. The mountains of
Shennongjia are often considered the easternmost section of the Daba Range. The southern slope of the Daba Mountains drains into the
Sichuan Basin or directly into the Yangtze via short streams that flow into the river in the
Three Gorges area, such as the
Shen Nong Stream. The northern side drains into the
Han River, a major tributary of the Yangtze, which, however, does not join the Yangtze until some hundreds kilometers to the east (in
Wuhan). The Daba Mountains' highest points are in the Shennongjia
massif in
Shennongjia Forest District. The three tallest peaks, located west of
Muyu town, are Shennong Deng ("Shennong Peak", elevation), Da Shennongjia ("Great Shennongjia", ), and Xiao Shennongjia ("Lesser Shennongjia", , on the district's border with
Badong County). Laojun Shan, tall, is located northeast of Muyu. In the southeast, the Daba Mountains are joined to the
Wu Mountains, which block the Yangtze's flow out of the
Sichuan Basin. In the east, the small
Jingshan Range (in the southern part of the
Xiangyang Prefecture) can be viewed as the extreme extension of the Daba Mountains. In the northeast, the
Wudang Mountains are nearby; some authors even consider them a "branch" of the Daba Mountains. and is located in four counties,
Ningqiang County,
Nanzheng County,
Xixiang County, and
Zhenba County, with the largest sinkhole (520 meters in diameter and 320 meters deep), near Sanyuanzhen () in Zhenba County. ==Natural environment==