Huang He River

Huang He River

"China's Sorrow," "Cradle of Chinese Civilization," "River of Sorrow," "Mother River"– it really doesn't matter what you call it because it all really sums up into the well-known name of Huang He River. The Huang He River, otherwise known as the Yellow River, is the second longest river in China with a length of 3,395 miles (5,464 kilometers). In fact, this river is so lengthy that it happens to be the sixth longest river in the world! The Huang He River carries loess, a type of rich, yellow soil, from Mongolia to the Pacific Ocean in its flow toward the east. Therefore, the Huang He River is more commonly known as the Yellow River because of the yellow colored silts that give the water its ochre-yellow color. Generally, western China's Kunlun Mountains

(specifically, the river actually originates from the Bayan Har Mountains, which is a branch of the Kunlun Mountains, in Qinghai Province) is the source of the Yellow River. From that point on, it loops north, bends south, and flows eastward until emptying into the Bohai Sea (Gulf of Bohai). The Huang He has an overall basin area of 742,443 square kilometers (290,520 miles2). It also has an elevation of 14,765 feet (4,500 meters) and an average discharge of 90,808 feet3 per second. As I mentioned before, the Huang He is known by many different names including "Cradle of Chinese Civilization" and "Mother River" which both signify that the Huang He River basin was the place where the Chinese civilization grew and thrived. However, even though the Yellow River was a big part of the Chinese civilization and the fact that they were able to prosper and flourish, it was also given the nicknames "China's Sorrow" or "River of Sorrow" because of its fatal floods that occurred regularly. Moving on, the Yellow River flows through nine provinces and, for the most part, flows

through the major cities of Lanzhou, Kaifeng, and Jinan and not to mention the basin country of People's Republic of China. Oh, we're not done with the physical characteristics just yet! But so far, what do you think of the Huang He River?

Continuing with the Huang He River's physical characteristics, it is, in fact, divided into three separate stages: the upper reaches, the middle reaches, and the lower reaches. Starting with the upper reaches of the Huang He, it runs through hilly and dry regions. The upper reaches, itself, have a total length of 2,160 miles (3,472 kilometers) and have an elevation drop of 3,496 meters with a basin area of 149,035 miles2 (386,000 kilometers2). As a matter of fact, the upper reaches' basin area alone turns out to be 51.3% of the Yellow River's total basin area. With that, the upper reaches of the Huang He River originate from the Kunlun Mountains (specifically: Bayan Har Mountains) and end at Hekouzhen (Hekou County) of Inner Mongolia right

before making a turn to the south. Moving on, the middle reaches have an overall length of 749 miles (1,206 kilometers) with an overall basin area of 132,820 miles2 (344,000 kilometers2) which totals up to be the other 45.7% of the Huang He's complete basin area total. In addition, the middle reaches have an elevation drop of 890 meters (2,290 feet) and provide the Yellow River with 92% of its silts. On top of all of that, the middle reaches have a starting point at Hekouzhen (Hekou County) in Inner Mongolia and an ending point at Zhengzhou in Henan Province. In the middle reaches, the river flows south between the Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces. The last of all the stages; the lower reaches have a length of 488 miles (786 kilometers) and have a basin area of 8,880 miles2 (23,000 kilometers2). Unlike the other reaches, the lower reaches are limited to a

levee-lined path as it flows northeast (across the North China Plain) from Zhengzhou before emptying into the Bohai Sea (Gulf of Bohai). The lower reaches have an elevation drop of 93.6 meters (307 feet). Whew!! That was a lot of physical characteristics we covered. Well, I may as