The city of Xinzhou is in the north-central part of Shanxi province and covers 25,000 square kilometers of land, with a mountainous-highland part accounting for 87 percent, and valleys, 13 percent.
The city of Shuozhou, in the northern part of Shanxi province, lies 129 kilometers to the south of Datong, 200 kilometers to the north of Taiyuan, and 502 kilometers to the west of Beijing.
The city of Linfen is in the southwestern part of Shanxi province and covers a 20,275-square–kilometer area, 19.4 percent of it plain, 51.4 percent hilly, and 29.2 percent mountainous.
Datong, the northernmost city of Shanxi province, lies at the northeastern edge of a loess plateau and is one of Chinese first group of 24 historical, cultural cities.