Manchuria consists mainly of the northern side of the funnel-shaped North China Craton, a large area of tilled and overlaid Precambrian rocks spanning 100 million hectares. The North China Craton was an independent continent before the Triassic period and is known to have been the northernmost piece of land in the world during the Carboniferous. The Khingan Mountains in the west are a Jurassic mountain range formed by the collision of the North China Craton with the Siberian Craton, which marked the final stage of the formation of the supercontinent Pangaea.

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Provinces of Manchuria China:
直隸 Zhili [modern Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin]
Shengjing 盛京 (later Fengtian 奉天 [modern Liaoning])
Jilin 吉林
Heilongjiang 黑龍江
Shanxi 山西
Shaanxi 陜西
Gansu 甘肅
Shandong 山東
Henan 河南
Jiangsu 江蘇
Anhui 安徽
Hubei 湖北
Hunan 湖南
Jiangxi 江西
Zhejiang 浙江
Fujian 福建
Guangdong 廣東
Guangxi 廣西
Guizhou 貴州
Yunnan 雲南
Sichuan 四川
Qinghai 青海 (since 1907)
Xizang 西藏 (since 1751)
Xinjiang 新疆 (since 1884)