How does the Yellow River help China? The Yellow River is the most important water resource for the dry north of China, playing an irreplaceable role in economic development, and agriculture. Since 1960 over 14 dams have been constructed on the river for hydroelectric power, which is vital to northern China's infrastructure.
What has China done to protect the Yellow River?
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the government has done much to harness the power and resource of the Yellow River through various water conservation projects, including the dams of Sanmenxia, Liujiaxia, Longyangxia and Xiaolangdi.
What does the Yellow River symbolize in China?
The Yellow River is not just a river of China, but also the symbol of the Chinese spirit: bearing burdens (its sedimentation), adaptation (its course changes), and perseverance (its continual flow). For thousands of years, the Yellow River has been admired by great poets, artists,...
Why is the Yellow River important to Mongolia?
The river is fast flowing and treacherous. Most of the Huang He’s hydropower stations are built on this section of the river. When the Yellow River navigates Inner Mongolia, it mostly crosses grassy plains.
Where to go along the Yellow River in China?
Along the Yellow River, there are many worthwhile attractions and many tourist cities, such as Lanzhou, Zhongwei, Yinchuan, Baotou, Yan'an, Luoyang, Zhengzhou, and Kaifeng . See these popular itineraries for inspiration: Or contact us to create a trip based on your needs.
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Why is the Yellow River significant to China?
Chinese refer to the Yellow river as "the Mother River" and "the Cradle of Chinese Civilization". That is because the Yellow River was the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilizations in the Xia (2100–1600 BC) and Shang (1600–1046 BC) eras - the most prosperous region in early Chinese history.
How is the Yellow River helpful?
It is called the Yellow River because its waters carry silt, which give the river its yellow-brown color, and when the river overflows, it leaves a yellow residue behind. While the river helps create fertile land that is suited for farming, during certain times of the year the Huang He frequently overflows.
How did rivers impact Chinese civilization?
Perhaps the two most important geographical features of Ancient China were the two major rivers that flowed through central China: the Yellow River to the north and the Yangtze River to the south. These major rivers were a great source of fresh water, food, fertile soil, and transportation.
How did Huang He river contribute to the growth of the Chinese civilization?
How did the Huang He River contribute to the growth of the Chinese civilization? The fertile soil led to food surpluses, which supported a larger group of people. The New Kingdom began to decline around 1200 BCE, but what event ultimately brought the era to a close?
How did ancient Chinese solve the flooding problem along the Yellow River?
Over the years, the Chinese have tried to control the Yellow River by building higher levees, digging channels and building dams.
Which river is described as China's blessing?
Which River is known as China's Blessing? The Yellow River is best described as? Which city was possibly the capital of the Xia dynasty? From the 18th to the 12th century B.C.E what dynasty ruled China?
How does the Yellow River impact irrigation?
Yellow River Irrigation affects the shallow groundwater table and water quality. Unreasonable irrigation has negative effects on the Lake ecosystem. Increasing the amount of water diversion can reduce salinization.
What did the Yellow River Valley civilization trade?
First, the Yellow River Valley Civilization developed silk fabric, which became a much sought-after commodity for many traders on the Silk Road. Also, The Yellow Valley Civilization used astronomy to develop an annual calendar.
How did geography help ancient China?
Economic and Cultural Isolation In this way, geography kept early China culturally and economically isolated from the rest the world. However, ancient Chinese civilizations were exposed to the sheep and cattle herders inhabiting the grasslands in the northwest, and the fishing cultures along the southeast coasts.
Why was the Huang He so important to the survival of the ancient Chinese?
What made the Huang He so valuable to ancient Chinese civilization? It helped promote agriculture by depositing yellowish silt that made the soil fertile.
How did the Huang River affect the ancient Chinese?
How did the Huang River affect China? Overflowed their banks each spring, bringing fertile topsoil to the land; They built their farming villages along the river.
Where The Name "Yellow River" Came from
The name "Yellow River" comes from the huge amounts of "yellow" loess sediment it carries when flowing through the Loess Plateau. It is the world's...
Yellow River Civilization — China's Cradle
Almost all Chinese agree that the Yellow River Basin was the cradle of Chinese Civilization. A great amount of archeological information proves tha...
What to See Along The Yellow River
Along the Yellow River, there are numerous historic and ancient attractions, and stunning scenery. Top attractions of the Yellow River include fore...
The Importance of The Yellow River
The Yellow River is the most important water resource for the dry north of China, playing an irreplaceable role in economic development, and agricu...
New Yellow River Troubles
With global warming, decrease in rainfall in the Yellow River Basin, and increasing water demands for irrigation, industry, etc., the Yellow River...
Visit Tourist Cities on The Yellow River With China Highlights
Along the Yellow River, there are many worthwhile attractions and many tourist cities, such as Lanzhou, Zhongwei, Yinchuan, Baotou, Yan'an, Luoyang...
What is the largest waterfall in the world?
The Yellow River’s Hukou Waterfall — the world's largest "yellow" waterfall. Along the Yellow River, there are numerous historic and ancient attractions, and stunning scenery. Top attractions of the Yellow River include forest parks, deserts, grasslands, the Loess Plateau, ancient capitals, and a "chocolate" waterfall.
Where is the Loess Plateau?
The middle reaches, about 1,200 km (700 mi) from Hekou Town to Zhengzhou, occupies plain and hills in China's Loess Plateau region, where huge amounts of sediment are suspended. The lower reaches, from Zhengzhou to the Bo Sea, is about 800 km (500 mi).
What is the Yellow River Basin?
Almost all Chinese agree that the Yellow River Basin was the cradle of Chinese Civilization. A great amount of archeological information proves that the Yellow River was the most prosperous region in early Chinese history (2100–1046 BC). The Yellow River is not just a river of China, but also the symbol of the Chinese spirit: bearing burdens ...
What is the average flow rate of the Yellow River?
The average flow rate of the Yellow River is 1,800 cubic meters per second. Its biggest tributary is the Wei River which flows past Xi'an. The upper reaches, about 3,500 km (2,000 mi), includes the upland swamps and pastures of the Tibetan Plateau and gorges in foothill country to the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia.
How many times did the Yellow River flood?
Between 608 BC and 1938 AD, the Yellow River changed course 26 times, and flooded over 1,500 times .
What is the government doing to deal with the Yellow River?
The government is taking measures to deal with Yellow River pollution, such as setting limits on the volume of major pollutants discharged into rivers and lakes, and controlling overuse of water resources.
Why is the Yellow River important?
The Yellow River is the most important water resource for the dry north of China, playing an irreplaceable role in economic development, and agriculture. Since 1960 over 14 dams have been constructed on the river for hydroelectric power, which is vital to northern China's infrastructure.
What is the length of the Hetao Plain?
The flow is slow. The Hetao Plain has a length of 900 km (560 mi) and width of 30 to 50 km (19 to 31 mi). It is historically the most important irrigation plain along the Yellow River.
What river did the Yellow River avulsion cause?
The resulting major river avulsion allowed the Yellow to capture tributaries of the Huai River. For the first time in recorded history, the Yellow River shifted completely south of Shandong Peninsula and flowed into the Yellow Sea. By 1194, the mouth of the Huai had been blocked.
What was the significance of the Hangu Pass?
From around the beginning of the 3rd century, the importance of the Hangu Pass was reduced , with the major fortifications and military bases moved upriver to Tongguan. In AD 923, the desperate Later Liang general Duan Ning again broke the dikes, flooding 1,000 square miles (2,600 km 2) in a failed attempt to protect his realm's capital from the Later Tang. A similar proposal from the Song engineer Li Chun concerning flooding the lower reaches of the river to protect the central plains from the Khitai was overruled in 1020: the Chanyuan Treaty between the two states had expressly forbidden the Song from establishing new moats or changing river courses.
How many floods have occurred in the past century?
There have been 11 such major floods in the past century, each causing tremendous loss of life and property. Nowadays, explosives dropped from aircraft are used to break the ice dams before they become dangerous. Before modern dams appear in China, the Yellow River used to be extremely prone to flooding.
What is the Yellow River?
The Yellow River is one of several rivers that are essential for China's existence. At the same time, however, it has been responsible for several deadly floods, including the only natural disasters in recorded history to have killed more than a million people.
Why is the Yellow River unusable?
On 25 November 2008, Tania Branigan of The Guardian filed a report "China's Mother River: the Yellow River", claiming that severe pollution has made one-third of China's Yellow River unusable even for agricultural or industrial use, due to factory discharges and sewage from fast-expanding cities . The Yellow River Conservancy Commission had surveyed more than 8,384 mi (13,493 km) of the river in 2007 and said 33.8% of the river system registered worse than "level five" according to the criteria used by the UN Environment Program. Level five is unfit for drinking, aquaculture, industrial use, or even agriculture. The report said waste and sewage discharged into the system last year totaled 4.29b tons. Industry and manufacturing made up 70% of the discharge into the river with households accounting for 23% and just over 6% coming from other sources.
How big is the Yellow River basin?
The Yellow River basin has an east–west extent of about 1,900 kilometers (1,180 mi) and a north–south extent of about 1,100 km (680 mi). Its total drainage area is about 795,000 square kilometers (307,000 sq mi).
What is the Yellow River?
The Yellow River is often called the cradle of Chinese civilization. With a length of 3,395 miles (5,464 km), it is the country’s second longest river—surpassed only by the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang)—and its drainage basin is the third largest in China, with an area of some 290,000 square miles (750,000 square km).
Where does the Yellow River originate?
The Yellow River originates at an elevation above 15,000 feet (4,600 metres) in the Bayan Har Mountains, in the eastern Plateau of Tibet. In its upper reaches the river crosses two large bodies of water, Lakes Ngoring and Gyaring. Those shallow lakes, each covering an area of about 400 square miles (1,000 square km), are rich in fish and freeze over in winter. The Yellow River in that region flows generally from west to east. The broad highlands of the upper course rise 1,000 to 1,700 feet (300 to 500 metres) above the river and its tributaries. The highlands consist of crystalline rocks that are sometimes visible as eroded outcroppings on the surface. The river enters a region of deep gorges, winding its way first southeast, then northwest around the A’nyêmaqên (Amne Machin) Mountains, where its fall exceeds 10 feet per mile (2 metres per km), and then east again between the Xiqing and Laji mountains.
What river flows through the Bo Hai?
The Yellow River (Hu ang He) basin and the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) basin and their drainage networks. The river rises in southern Qinghai province on the Plateau of Tibet and crosses six other provinces and two autonomous regions in its course to the Bo Hai (Gulf of Chihli), an embayment of the Yellow Sea of the North Pacific Ocean.
How long is the Yellow River?
The middle course of the Yellow River, extending more than 1,800 miles (2,900 km), consists of a great loop and drains an area of about 23,000 square miles (60,000 square km). The river at first flows northeast for about 550 miles (880 km) through the sandy soils of the northern Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia and of the western Ordos Plateau. It has many rapids there, and in a number of places it narrows. The river then turns eastward and flows for another 500 miles (800 km) through alluvial plains in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, in places branching into numerous distributary channels. In that stretch its fall is less than half a foot per mile (9 cm per km), and many of the channels have been developed over the millennia for irrigated agriculture.
How many miles is the Yellow River?
That transition marks the end of the upper Yellow River, which is some 725 miles (1,165 km) from its source. The upper course drains a basin covering about 48,000 square miles (124,000 square km), consisting chiefly of inaccessible, highly mountainous, sparsely populated terrain with a cold climate.
Which river flows past China's oldest cities?
The Yellow River basin has an enormous population—exceeded by only a small number of countries—and the river and its tributaries flow past some of China’s oldest cities, including Lanzhou, Baotou, Xi’an (Sian), Taiyuan, Luoyang, Zhengzhou, Kaifeng, and Jinan. Yellow River (Huang He)
What is the meaning of the Chinese word "huang"?
The Mandarin Chinese word huang (“yellow”) is a reference to the fine loess sediments that the river carries to the sea.
What is the Yellow River?
The Yellow River is one of the country's major rivers, second only in length and importance to the Yangtze River. However, the Yellow River pales in comparison to the Yangtze when it comes to transportation along its 5,464-kilometer length (3,395 miles). The Yellow River begins in West China's Qinghai Plateau then wanders around northern China ...
Why was the Yellow River considered the main highway in ancient times?
Even in ancient times the Yellow River was considered the main highway for transportation purposes because boat travel was quicker than overland travel. In those days, boats were not motorized, so Chinese did not need to worry about engines becoming clogged with the silt being carried downstream.
How many people did the Chinese carry on a raft?
About nine to 12 skins were used on each raft, which usually carried no more than four or five people .
Where are rafts still used today?
Such rafts are still used in Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia provinces today. While there are many bridges crossing the river today, the most famous one is the YellowRiver Bridge at Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province in West China as it was the first modern bridge to cross the river.
Why is the Yellow River important to China?
Still, the Yellow River is considered an important water way in China, and freighters do use it to transport goods inland because boating is cheaper than trucking or rail.
Why is China called China's sorrow?
Heavy flooding occurs between July and October, giving rise to the nickname of "China's sorrow" because so many millions of people have died in the floods. These floods make shipping difficult, as do the droughts which dry up the river at other times of the year.
About The Yellow River
The Yellow River in Ancient China
- The recorded history of Chinese civilization begins on the banks of the Yellow River with the Xia Dynasty, which lasted from 2100 to 1600 BCE. According to Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian" and the "Classic of Rites," a number of different tribes originally united into the Xia Kingdom in order to combat devastating floods on the river. When a series of breakwaters faile…
The Yellow River in The Medieval Period
- In 923 CE, China was embroiled in the chaotic Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. Among those kingdoms were the Later Liang and the Later Tangdynasties. As Tang armies approached the Liang capital, a general named Tuan Ning decided to breach the Yellow River dikes and flood 1,000 square miles of the Liang Kingdom in a desperate effort to stave off the Tang. Tuan's gam…
Overview
The Yellow River or Huang He is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 km (3,395 mi). Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of Western China, it flows through nine provinces, and it empties into the Bohai Sea near the city of Dongying in Shandong province. The Yellow River basin has an east–west extent of about 1,900 kilometers (1,180 mi) and a north–south extent o…
In culture
In ancient times, it was believed that the Yellow River flowed from Heaven as a continuation of the Milky Way. In a Chinese legend, Zhang Qian is said to have been commissioned to find the source of the Yellow River. After sailing up-river for many days, he saw a girl spinning and a cow herd. Upon asking the girl where he was, she presented him with her shuttle with instructions to show it t…
Etymology
Early Chinese literature including the Yu Gong or Tribute of Yu dating to the Warring States period (475–221 BC) refers to the Yellow River as simply 河 (Old Chinese: *C.gˤaj, Modern Beijing Mandarin: /xɤ̌/ or in pinyin Hé), a character that has come to mean "river" in modern usage. An early attestation of the name 黃河 (Eastern Han Chinese: *ɣuaŋ-gɑi; Middle Chinese: Huang Ha ) in the Eastern Han treatise Kongcongzi 孔叢子 "The Many Kong Family Master's Anthology", attribut…
History
The Yellow River has been critical to the economic development of northern China. Flooding of the river has also caused much destruction, including multiple floods that have resulted in the deaths of over one million people. Among the deadliest were the 1332–33 flood during the Yuan dynasty, the 1887 flood during the Qing dynasty which killed anywhere from 900,000 to 2 million p…
Geography
According to the China Exploration and Research Society, the source of the Yellow River is at 34°29′31″N 96°20′25″E / 34.49194°N 96.34028°E in the Bayan Har Mountains near the eastern edge of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. The source tributaries drain into Gyaring Lake and Ngoring Lake on the western edge of Golog Prefecture high in the Bayan Har Mountains of Qinghai. …
Characteristics
The Yellow River is notable for the large amount of silt it carries—1.6 billion tons annually at the point where it descends from the Loess Plateau. If it is running to the sea with sufficient volume, 1.4 billion tons are carried to the sea per year. One estimate gives 34 kilograms of silt per cubic meter as opposed to 10 for the Colorado and 1 for the Nile.
Hydroelectric power dams
Below is the list of hydroelectric power stations built on the Yellow River, arranged according to the first year of operation (in brackets):
• Sanmenxia Dam (1960; Sanmenxia, Henan)
• Sanshenggong Dam (1966)
• Qingtong Gorge hydroelectric power station (1968; Qingtongxia, Ningxia)
Crossings
The main bridges and ferries by the province names in the order of downstream to upstream are:
Shandong
• Dongying Yellow River Bridge
• Shengli Yellow River Bridge (Dongying)