The Qinling orogen is a composite continental orogen with a complex evolutionary history. During the Early and Middle Proterozoic, it was a continental rift; in the late Proterozoic, it began to be part of a plate tectonic regime; from the Palaeozoic to Early Mesozoic, it was involved in subduction-collision between three plates; and in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, it was affected by intracontinental postorogenic tectonism. The Qinling orogen has a flyover-shaped, 3-D lithospheric architecture. Palaeozoic. Two limited oceans originated dunng this time and the Qinling microplate was then separated from the north China plate and the Yangtze plate. Subduction of oceanic crust took place in the Early and Middle Palaeozoic, accompanied by coeval vertical underplating and accretion. Continent-continent collision occurred from the Carboniferous to the Middle Triassic in an oblique and diachronous fashion, creating two major suture zones, that is, the northern Shangdan suture zone and the southern Mianlue suture zone. Intense Mesozoic-enozoic intracontinent orogeny brought about rapid uplift and eventually formed the present-day Qinling.