As the 2nd longest river (next to the Yangtze River) in China and the 5th longest river in the world, the 5,464-km long Yellow River is the mother river of the Chinese nation with a catchment area of over 750,000 square km, which has a substantial influence on the China culture. The Yellow River is the cradle of the prehistoric mankind of China, represented by Xihoudu Pre-men (from present Ruicheng County of Shanxi Province) of 1.5 million years ago, Lantian Men of one million years ago, Dali Men of 300,000 years ago and Homo sapiens (from Ding Village, Xiangfen, Shanxi Province) of 70,000 years ago. Originating from Maqu in the north Bayan Kara Mountain of Qinghai Province, the Yellow River boasts the highest sediment concentration of all the rivers in the world, whose drainage area is topographically divided into Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Loess Plateau, Inner Mongolian Plateau and North China Plain, flowing into the Bohai Sat at Kenli County of Shandong Province. Seen from above, the Yellow River is just like a huge dragon running through 8 provinces of China, including Qinghai Province, Sichuan Province, Gansu Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi Province, Shaanxi Province, Henan Province and Shandong Province. With Hekou Town (in Inner Mongolia) and Peach Valley (in Henan Province) as the dividing lines respectively, Yellow River is generally composed of the upper reaches, the middle reaches and the lower reaches, whose estuary averagely measures 1,500 m wide and 1.6 m deep and riverbed is higher than the cities and villages it runs through owing to sediment accumulations, so it’s called “the Hanging River” by the later generations as well. The Yellow River runs between Zhongtiao Mountain and Qinling Mountain, flowing eastward across Luoyang along its way. As one of the four ancient capitals along with Xian, Nanjing and Beijing, Luoyang served as capital in the Zhou dynasty, the Eastern Han dynasty, the Wei Kingdom Period, the Western Jin dynasty, the Northern Wei dynasty, the Sui dynasty, the Wuzhou dynasty, the Later Liang dynasty, the Later Jin dynasty and the Later Tang dynasty
Related Articles -
Yellow, River,
|