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.
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.
When the Yellow River flows clear. Sometimes the Yellow River is poetically called the "Muddy Flow" ( 濁 流; 浊 流; 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 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.
Initially, when a slight curve is already present in the river, water travels around the outer edge of the curve faster than the inner edge, because it's covering a greater distance in the same amount of time. As water moves faster, more of the sediment in it stays suspended, instead of settling to the bottom.
The Yellow River more or less adopted its present course during the 1897 flood. The 1931 flood killed an estimated 1,000,000 to 4,000,000, and is the worst natural disaster recorded (excluding famines and epidemics).
In China, people sometimes refer to the Yellow River as the River of Sorrow or the Scourge of the Sons of Han. The river is Asia's second-longest and is infamous for its unpredictable and oftentimes devastating floods.
Yellow River Facts — Mother Monster TamedFifth Longest River — Huge Torrent to Muddy Trickle. ... Cradle of Chinese Civilization. ... The Muddiest Major River on Earth. ... The World's Largest "Yellow" Waterfall — Hukou Waterfall. ... Ships Sail on a Raised River — 10m Above the Ground! ... "China's Sorrow" Has Killed Millions by Flooding.More items...•
Known as the country's "mother river", it supplies water to millions of people in the north of China. But in recent years the quality has deteriorated due to factory discharges and sewage from fast-expanding cities. Much of it is now unfit even for agricultural or industrial use, the study shows.
the Congo RiverIn addition, the Congo River is the world's deepest recorded river at 720 feet (220 meters) deep in parts — too deep for light to penetrate, The New York Times reported.
The lower Yellow River has changed course radically throughout its geologic history. The river's decreased gradient and velocity on the plain cause its suspended load of silt to settle. As the riverbed builds up, the stream shifts course to occupy a lower level.
The shape of rivers and streams changes through time as erosion, deposition, and transport of sediment occurs. Rivers and streams maintain a dynamic equilibrium between discharge, slope, sediment load, and sediment size (Lane 1955).
The Mississippi River is a dynamic and changing river. Its course has changed many times and it will eventually change its path again. There are several factors that contribute to the change in courses of the Mississippi River. The main factor is energy.
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.
The Yellow River is the surging heart of Chinese civilization. Its waters and the rich soil it carries bring the agricultural abundance needed to support China's enormous population.
The first appearance of the name "Yellow River" (黄河) is in the Book of Han (汉书) written in the Western Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 9). The name "Yellow River" describes the perennial ochre-yellow colour of the muddy water in the lower course of the river.
The Yellow River is also known as the "cradle of Chinese civilization" or the "Mother River.". Usually a source of rich fertile soil and irrigation water, the Yellow River has transformed itself more than 1,500 times in recorded history into a raging torrent that has swept away entire villages. As a result, the river has several less-positive ...
The Yellow River springs up in the Bayan Har Mountain Range of west-central China's Qinghai Province and makes its way through nine provinces before it pours its silt out into the Yellow Sea off the coast of Shandong Province. It is the world's sixth-longest river, with a length of about 3,395 miles.
The Qin kings relied on the Cheng-Kuo Canal, finished in 246 BCE, to provide irrigation water and increased crop yields , leading to a growing population and the manpower to defeat rival kingdoms. However, the Yellow River's silt-laden water quickly clogged the canal.
The Yellow River in Modern China. A northward course-change in the river in the early 1850s helped fuel the Taiping Rebellion, one of China's deadliest peasant revolts. As populations grew ever larger along the treacherous river's banks, so too did the death tolls from flooding. In 1887, a major Yellow River flood killed an estimated 900,000 ...
The 1931 Yellow River flood killed between 3.7 million and 4 million people, making it the deadliest flood in all of human history. In the aftermath, with war raging and the crops destroyed, survivors reportedly sold their children into prostitution and even resorted to cannibalism to survive.
Over the centuries, the Chinese people have used it not only for agriculture but also as a transportation route and even as a weapon. The Yellow River springs up in the Bayan Har Mountain Range ...
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 gambit did not succeed; despite the raging floodwaters, the Tang conquered the Liang.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Šar Mörön. The Yellow River (Chinese: 黃河, Jin: [xuə xɔ]; Mandarin: Huang he [xwǎŋ xɤ̌] ( listen)) 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).
In Chinese mythology, the giant Kua Fu drained the Yellow River and the Wei River to quench his burning thirst as he pursued the Sun. Historical documents from the Spring and Autumn period and Qin dynasty 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 Henan Provinces, 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.
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…
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…