| Yellow River (黄河) |
| Huang He |
|
|
| Country | China |
|---|
| States | Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia,Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi,Henan, Shandong |
|---|
|
| Tributaries |
| - left | Fen River (and many smaller rivers) |
| - right | Tao River,Wei River (and many smaller rivers) |
|
|
| Source | Bayan Har Mountains |
|---|
| - location | Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai |
| - elevation | 4,800 m (15,748 ft) |
| - coordinates |  34°29′31″N 96°20′25″E |
| Mouth | Bohai Sea |
|---|
| - location | Kenli County, Shandong |
| - elevation | 0 m (0 ft) |
| - coordinates | 37°46′48″N 119°15′00″ECoordinates: 37°46′48″N 119°15′00″E |
|
| Length | 5,464 km (3,395 mi) |
|---|
| Basin | 752,000 km2 (290,349 sq mi) |
|---|
| Discharge | |
|---|
| - average | 2,571 m3/s (90,794 cu ft/s) |
|
Map of the Yellow River in northeastern China
|
The
Yellow River or
Huang He is the third-longest
river in
Asia, following the
Yangtze River and
Yenisei River, and the
sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 km (3,395 mi).
[1] Originating in the
Bayan Har Mountains in
Qinghaiprovince 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 of about 1,100 km (680 mi). Its total basin area is about 742,443 square kilometers (286,659 sq mi).
The Yellow River is called "the cradle of Chinese civilization", because its basin was the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilization, and it was the most prosperous region in early
Chinese history. However, frequent devastating
floods and course changes produced by the continual elevation of the
river bed (due in part to manmade erosion upstream), sometimes above the level of its surrounding farm fields, has also earned it the unenviable names
China's Sorrow and
Scourge of the Sons of Han.
[2]
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[3]), a character that has come to mean "river" in modern usage. The first appearance of the name
黃河 (
Old Chinese:
*N-kʷˤaŋ C.gˤaj;
Middle Chinese:
Hwang Ha[3]) is in the
Book of Han written during the
Western Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 9). The adjective "yellow" describes the perennial color of the muddy water in the lower course of the river, which arises from soil (
loess) being carried downstream.
History[edit]
Dynamics[edit]
The Yellow River Breaches its Course by
Ma Yuan (1160–1225), Song Dynasty
The Yellow River is one of several rivers that are essential for China's very 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. The deadliest was a 1332–33 flood that killed 7 million people. Close behind is the
1887 flood, which killed anywhere from 900,000 to 2 million people, and a 1931 flood (part of
a massive number of floods that year) that killed 1–4 million people.
[6]
The cause of the floods is the large amount of fine-grained
loess carried by the river from the
Loess Plateau, which is continuously deposited along the bottom of its channel. The sedimentation causes natural dams to slowly accumulate. These subaqueous dams were unpredictable and generally undetectable. Eventually, the enormous amount of water has to find a new way to the sea, forcing it to take the
path of least resistance. When this happens, it bursts out across the flat
North China Plain, sometimes taking a new channel and inundating any farmland, cities or towns in its path. The traditional Chinese response of building higher and higher
levees along the banks sometimes also contributed to the severity of the floods: When flood water did break through the levees, it could no longer drain back into the river bed as it would after a normal flood as the river bed was sometimes now higher than the surrounding countryside. These changes could cause the river's mouth to shift as much as 480 km (300 mi), sometimes reaching the ocean to the north of
Shandong Peninsula and sometimes to the south.
[7]
Another historical source of devastating floods is the collapse of upstream
ice dams in
Inner Mongolia with an accompanying sudden release of vast quantities of impounded water. 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.
[8]
Before modern
dams came to China, the Yellow River was extremely prone to flooding. In the 2,540 years before A.D. 1946, the Yellow River has been reckoned to have flooded 1,593 times, shifting its course 26 times noticeably and nine times severely.
[9] These floods include some of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded. Before modern disaster management, when floods occurred, some of the population might initially die from drowning but then many more would suffer from the ensuing famine and spread of diseases.
[10]
Ancient times[edit]
The Yellow River as depicted in a Qing dynasty illustrated map (sections)
A map of China depicting the Yellow River's path (shown in blue in the upper half of the map) in the early 19th century.
Historical documents from the
Spring and Autumn period[11] and
Qin Dynasty[12] indicate that the Yellow River at that time flowed considerably north of its present course. These accounts show that after the river passed
Luoyang, it flowed along the border between
Shanxi and
HenanProvinces, then continued along the border between
Hebei and Shandong before emptying into
Bohai Bay near present-day
Tianjin. Another outlet followed essentially the present course.
[9]
The river left these paths in 602 BC
[11] and shifted completely south of the
Shandong Peninsula.
[9] Sabotage of dikes, canals, and reservoirs and deliberate flooding of rival states became a standard military tactic during the
Warring States period.
[13] Major flooding in AD 11 is credited with the downfall of the short-lived
Xin dynasty, and another flood in AD 70 returned the river north of Shandong on essentially its present course.
[9]
Medieval times[edit]
In 923 a 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 the Later Liang 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
Treaty of Shanyuanbetween the two states had expressly forbidden the Song from establishing new moats or changing river courses.
[14]
Breaches occurred regardless: one at
Henglong in 1034 divided the course in three and repeatedly flooded the northern regions of
Dezhou and
Bozhou.
[14] The Song worked for five years futilely attempting to restore the previous course – using over 35,000 employees, 100,000 conscripts, and 220,000 tons of wood and bamboo in a single year
[14] – before abandoning the project in 1041. The more sluggish river then occasioned a breach at
Shanghu that sent the main outlet north towards
Tianjin in 1048
[9] and by 1194 blocked the mouth of the
Huai River.
[15] The buildup of silt deposits was such that even after the Yellow River later shifted its course, the Huai could no longer flow along its historic course, but instead, its water pools into
Hongze Lake and then runs southward toward the
Yangtze River.
[citation needed]
A flood in
1344 returned the Yellow River south of Shandong. The Yuan dynasty was waning, and the emperor forced enormous teams to build new embankments for the river. The terrible conditions helped to fuel rebellions that led to the founding of the Ming dynasty.
[7]The course changed again in
1391 when the river flooded from Kaifeng to Fengyang in Anhui. It was finally stabilized by the eunuch
Li Xing during the public works projects following the
1494 flood.
[16]
The river flooded many times in the 16th century, including in 1526, 1534, 1558, and 1587. Each flood affected the river's lower course.
[16]
The
1642 flood was man-made, caused by the attempt of the
Ming governor of
Kaifeng to use the river to destroy the peasant rebels under
Li Zicheng who had been besieging the city for the past six months.
[17] He directed his men to break the dikes in an attempt to flood the rebels, but destroyed his own city instead: the flood and the ensuing famine and plague are estimated to have killed 300,000 of the city's previous population of 378,000.
[18] The once-prosperous city was nearly abandoned until its rebuilding under the
Kangxi Emperor in the
Qing Dynasty.
Recent times[edit]
The
1931 flood killed an estimated 1,000,000 to 4,000,000,
[19] and is the worst natural disaster recorded (excluding famines and epidemics).
On 9 June 1938, during the
Second Sino-Japanese War,
Nationalist troops under
Chiang Kai-Shek broke the levees holding back the river near the village of
Huayuankou in Henan, causing what has been called a "war-induced natural disaster".
[by whom?] The goal of the operation was to stop the advancing Japanese troops by following a strategy of "using water as a substitute for soldiers" (
yishui daibing). The
1938 flood of an area covering 54,000 km
2 (20,800 sq mi) took some 500,000 to 900,000 Chinese lives, along with an unknown number of Japanese soldiers. The flood prevented the Japanese Army from taking
Zhengzhou, on the southern bank of the Yellow River, but did not stop them from reaching their goal of capturing
Wuhan, which was the temporary seat of the Chinese government and straddles the
Yangtze River.
[21]
Geography[edit]
The Yellow River passes through seven present-day
provinces and two
autonomous regions, namely (from west to east)
Qinghai, Gansu,
Ningxia, Inner Mongolia,
Shaanxi, Shanxi,
Henan, and
Shandong. Major cities along the present course of the Yellow River include (from west to east)
Lanzhou,
Yinchuan,
Wuhai,
Baotou,
Luoyang,
Zhengzhou,
Kaifeng, and
Jinan. The current mouth of the Yellow River is located at
Kenli County, Shandong.
Upper reaches[edit]
The upper reaches of the Yellow River constitute a segment starting from its source in the Bayan Har Mountains and ending at Hekou Town (
Togtoh County),
Inner Mongolia just before it turns sharply to the south. This segment has a total length of 3,472 kilometers (2,157 mi) and total basin area of 386,000 square kilometers (149,000 sq mi), 51.4% of the total basin area. Along this length, the elevation of the Yellow River drops 3,496 meters (11,470 ft), with an average
grade of 0.10%.
The source section flows mainly through pastures, swamps, and knolls between the
Bayan Har Mountains, and the Anemaqen (
Amne Machin) Mountains. The river water is clear and flows steadily. Crystal clear lakes are characteristic of this section. The two main lakes along this section are Lake Zhaling (
扎陵湖) and Lake Eling (
鄂陵湖), with capacities of 4.7 billion and 10.8 billion m³ (166 and 381 billion ft
3), respectively. At elevations over 4,290 m (14,070 ft)) above sea level they are the two largest plateau freshwater lakes nationwide. A significant amount of land in the Yellow River's source area has been designated as the
Sanjiangyuan ("'Three Rivers' Sources") National Nature Reserve, to protect the source region of the Yellow River, the
Yangtze, and the
Mekong.
The valley section stretches from Longyang Gorge in
Qinghai to Qingtong Gorge in
Gansu. Steep cliffs line both sides of the river. The water bed is narrow and the average drop is large, so the flow in this section is extremely turbulent and fast. There are 20 gorges in this section, the most famous of these being the
Longyang, Jishi,
Liujia, Bapan, and
Qingtong gorges. The flow conditions in this section makes it the best location for
hydroelectric plants.
After emerging from the Qingtong Gorge, the river comes into a section of vast alluvial plains, the
Yinchuan Plain and
Hetao Plain. In this section, the regions along the river are mostly
deserts and
grasslands, with very few tributaries. 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.
Middle reaches[edit]
The part of the Yellow River (see
Ordos Loop) between Hekou Town (
Togtoh County), in
Inner Mongolia and
Zhengzhou,
Henan constitutes the middle reaches of the river. The middle reaches are 1,206 km (749 mi) long, with a basin area of 344,000 square kilometers (133,000 sq mi), 45.7% of the total, with a total elevation drop of 890 m (2,920 ft), an average drop of 0.074%. There are 30 large tributaries along the middle reaches, and the water flow is increased by 43.5% on this stage. The middle reaches contribute 92% of the river's silts.
The middle stream of the Yellow River passes through the
Loess Plateau, where substantial erosion takes place. The large amount of mud and sand discharged into the river makes the Yellow River the most
sediment-laden river in the world. The highest recorded annual level of silts discharged into the Yellow River is 3.91 billion tons in 1933. The highest silt concentration level was recorded in 1977 at 920 kg/m³ (57.4 lb/ft
3). These sediments later deposit in the slower lower reaches of the river, elevating the
river bed and creating the famous "river above ground".
From Hekou to Yumenkou, the river passes through the longest series of continuous valleys on its main course, collectively called the Jinshan Valley. The abundant hydrodynamic resources stored in this section make it the second most suitable area to build hydroelectric power plants. The famous
Hukou Waterfall is in the lower part of this valley, on the border of
Shanxi and
Shaanxi.
Lower reaches[edit]
In the lower reaches, from
Zhengzhou,
Henan to its mouth, a distance of 786 km (488 mi), the river is confined to a
levee-lined course as it flows to the northeast across the
North China Plainbefore emptying into the
Bohai Sea. The basin area in this stage is only 23,000 square kilometers (8,900 sq mi), a mere 3% of the total, because few tributaries add to the flow in this stage; nearly all rivers to the south drain into the
Huai River, whereas those to the north drain into the
Hai River. The total drop in elevation of the lower reaches is 93.6 m (307 ft), with an average grade of 0.012%.
The silts received from the middle reaches form sediments here, elevating the river bed. During 2,000 years of levee construction, excessive sediment deposits have raised the riverbed several meters above the surrounding ground.
At
Kaifeng, Henan, the Yellow River is 10 meters (33 ft) above the ground level.
[24]
Tributaries[edit]
Tributaries of the Yellow River include (upstream to downstream (?))
The Wei River is the largest of these tributaries.
Characteristics[edit]
Expansion of the Yellow River Delta from 1989 to 2009 in five year intervals.
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 annually.
[citation needed] One estimate gives 34 kilograms of silt per cubic meter as opposed to 10 for the Colorado and 1 for the Nile.
[25]
Its average discharge is said to be 2,110 cubic meters per second (32,000 for the Yangtze), with a maximum of 25,000 and minimum of 245. However, since 1972, it often runs dry before it reaches the sea. The low volume is due to increased agricultural
irrigation, increased by a factor of five since 1950. Water diverted from the river as of 1999 served 140 million people and irrigated 74,000 km² (48,572 mi²) of land.
[22] The Yellow River delta totals 8,000 square kilometers (3,090 mi²). However, with the decrease in silt reaching the sea, it has been reported to be shrinking slightly each year since 1996 through erosion.
[26]
The highest volume occurs during the rainy season from July to October, when 60% of the annual volume of the river flows. Maximum demand for irrigation is needed between March and June. In order to capture excess water for use when needed and for flood control and electricity generation, several dams have been built, but their expected life is limited due to the high silt load. A proposed
South–North Water Transfer Project involves several schemes to divert water from the
Yangtze River: one in the western headwaters of the rivers where they are closest to one another, another from the upper reaches of the
Han River, and a third using the route of the old
Grand Canal.
[citation needed]
Due to its heavy load of silt the Yellow River is a
depositing stream – that is, it deposits part of its carried burden of soil in its bed in stretches where it is flowing slowly. These deposits elevate the riverbed which flows between
natural levees in its lower reaches. Should a flood occur, the river may break out of the levees into the surrounding lower flood plain and take a new channel. Historically this has occurred about once every hundred years. In modern times, considerable effort has been made to strengthen levees and control floods.
[citation needed]
Hydroelectric power dams[edit]
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)
- Liujiaxia Dam (Liujia Gorge) (1974; Yongjing County, Gansu)
- Lijiaxia Dam (1997) (Jainca County, Qinghai)
- Yanguoxia Dam (Yanguo Gorge) hydroelectric power station (1975; Yongjing County, Gansu)
- Tianqiao Dam (1977)
- Bapanxia Dam (Bapan Gorge) (1980; Xigu District, Lanzhou, Gansu)
- Longyangxia Dam (1992; Gonghe County, Qinghai)
- Da Gorge hydroelectric power station (1998)
- Li Gorge hydroelectric power station (1999)
- Wanjiazhai Dam (1999; Pianguan County, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia)
- Xiaolangdi Dam (2001) (Jiyuan, Henan)
- Laxiwa Dam (2010) (Guide County, Qinghai)
- Yangqu Dam (2015) (Xinghai County, Qinghai)
- Maerdang Dam (2016) (Maqên County, Qinghai)
As reported in 2000, the 7 largest hydro power plants (Longyangxia, Lijiaxia, Liujiaxia, Yanguoxia, Bapanxia, Daxia and Qinglongxia) had the total installed capacity of 5,618 MW.
[27]
Crossings[edit]
Major cities along the Yellow River
The main bridges and ferries by the province names in the order of downstream to upstream are:
[28][29][30]
Henan
Aquaculture[edit]
The Yellow River is generally less suitable for
aquaculture than the rivers of central and southern
China, such as the
Yangtze or the
Pearl River, but aquaculture is also practiced in some areas along the Yellow River. An important aquaculture area is the riverside plain in
Xingyang City, upstream from
Zhengzhou. Since the development of fish ponds started in Xingyang's riverside
Wangcun Town in 1986, the pond systems in Wangcun have grown to the total size of 15,000
mu (10 km
2), making the town the largest aquaculture center in
North China.
[31]
A variety of the
Chinese softshell turtle popular with
China's gourmets is called the Yellow River Turtle (黄河鳖). Nowadays most of the Yellow River Turtles eaten in China's restaurants comes from
turtle farms, which may or may not be near the Yellow River. In 2007, construction started in
Wangcun on a large farm for raising this turtle variety. With the capacity for raising 5 million turtles a year, the facility was expected to become
Henan's largest farm of this kind.
[32]
Pollution[edit]
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.
[33] 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 the criteria used by the
UN Environment Program.
[dubious – discuss] 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.
[which?]
Yellow River in culture[edit]
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 to the astrologer Yen Chün-p'ing. When he returned, the astrologer recognized it as the shuttle of the Weaving Girl (
Vega), and, moreover, said that at the time Zhang received the shuttle, he had seen a
wandering star interpose itself between the Weaving Girl and the cow herd (
Altair).
[34]
The provinces of
Hebei and
Henan derive their names from the Yellow River. Their names mean, respectively, "North of the River" and "South of the River".
- Mother river, China's Sorrow, and cradle of Chinese civilization.
- When the Yellow River flows clear.
Sometimes the Yellow River is poetically called the "Muddy Flow" (
simplified Chinese:
浊流;
traditional Chinese:
濁流;
pinyin:
Zhuó Liú). The Chinese idiom "when the Yellow River flows clear" is used to refer to an event that will never happen and is similar to the English expression "when pigs fly".
"The Yellow River running clear" was reported as a good omen during the reign of the
Yongle Emperor, along with the appearance of such auspicious legendary beasts as
qilin (an African giraffe brought to China by a
Bengal embassy aboard
Zheng He's ships in 1414) and
zouyu (not positively identified) and other strange natural phenomena.
[36]
See also[edit]
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