The second step of the staircase

Going north from the Qinghai-Tibet plateau across the Kunlun and Qilian ranges and east across the Hengduan Mountains, the land abruptly drops to plateaus, mountains and basins on an altitude of 2,000 to 1,000 metres, forming the second step down the staircase, which consists of the Yunnan-Guizhou, Loess and Inner Mongolia pllateaus and the Tarim, Junggar and Sichuan basins.