Mohe is located in the far northwest of Heilongjiang at latitude 52° 10'−53° 33' N and 121° 07'−124° 20' E. It forms a border with Russia's Amur Oblast and Zabaykalsky Krai, where the Amur River flows for 245 kilometres (152 mi). A village, the northernmost Chinese settlement, at the latitude of 53° 29' N and known as the Beiji Village (北极村, literally "North Pole Village" or "Northernmost Village"), lies in this city, on the Amur River.
On extremely rare occasions, the aurora borealis can be seen.
Mohe spans 150 kilometres (93 mi) from north to south and has a total area of 18,233 square kilometres (7,040 sq mi), occupying 21.6% of the prefecture's (Daxing'anling) area and 3.9% of the provincial (Heilongjiang) area. This creates a population density of only 4.64 persons/km (12.0 persons/sqmi).
Maps
Climate
Mohe, by virtue of its far northern location and proximity to Siberia, is one of the few locations in China with a subarctic climate (KöppenDwc, TrewarthaEcbd), closely bordering on extreme humid continental, with long, dry, severe winters, and short, warm, wet summers. Winter begins in early to mid-October and lasts until late April or early May, and temperatures then are normally the coldest nationwide. Average temperatures stay below freezing for a total of nearly seven months of the year, and the frost-free period is just short of 90 days; in addition, the diurnal temperature variation is large, averaging 17.2 °C (31.0 °F) annually. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −28.2 °C (−18.8 °F) in January to 18.3 °C (64.9 °F) in July, with an annual mean of −3.90 °C (25.0 °F), so that the city is only a little south of the line of continuous permafrost. Extreme temperatures have ranged from −53.0 °C (−63.4 °F) to 39.3 °C (102.7 °F). The record low temperature of −53.0 °C (−63.4 °F), registered on 22 January 2023, was also the lowest temperature recorded in China. December and January have never recorded an above-freezing temperature, and all 12 months have had sub-freezing temperatures at some point.
Climate data for Mohe, elevation 433 m (1,421 ft), (1997–2020 normals, extremes 1971–present)
Mohe is the destination of both the main character and his fictional hero in Xiaolu Guo's film How Is Your Fish Today? (Jin tian de yu zen me yang?) (2006).
