The basement of the North China Craton consists of the Eastern and Western blocks, separated by the Central Zone. Both the Eastern and Western blocks are dominated by late Archaean tonalitic–trondhjemitic–granodioritic gneiss complexes interdigitated with minor supracrustal rocks metamorphosed at ∼2.5 Ga, with anticlockwise P–T paths. The Central Zone is composed of reworked late Archaean components and Palaeoproterozoic juvenile crustal materials that underwent regional metamorphism at ∼1.85 Ga, with clockwise P–T paths involving isothermal decompression as a result of collision between the Eastern and Western blocks, which resulted in the final assembly of the North China Craton.