| Yangtze River 长江 | |
|---|---|
 Dusk on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River (Three Gorges) 2002 | |
 Map of the Yangtze River drainage basin | |
| Native name | Cháng Jiāng (Chinese) |
| Location | |
| Country | China |
| Provinces | Qinghai, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu |
| Municipalities | Chongqing and Shanghai |
| Autonomous region | Tibet |
| Cities | Luzhou, Chongqing, Yichang, Jingzhou, Yueyang, Changsha, Wuhan, Jiujiang, Anqing, Tongling, Wuhu, Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Nantong, Shanghai |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Dam Qu (Jari Hill) |
| • location | Tanggula Mountains, Qinghai |
| • coordinates | 32°36′14″N 94°30′44″E / 32.60389°N 94.51222°E |
| • elevation | 5,170 m (16,960 ft) |
| 2nd source | Ulan Moron |
| • coordinates | 33°23′40″N 90°53′46″E / 33.39444°N 90.89611°E |
| 3rd source | Chuma'er River |
| • coordinates | 35°27′19″N 90°55′50″E / 35.45528°N 90.93056°E |
| 4th source | Muluwusu River |
| • coordinates | 33°22′13″N 91°10′29″E / 33.37028°N 91.17472°E |
| 5th source | Bi Qu |
| • coordinates | 33°16′58″N 91°23′29″E / 33.28278°N 91.39139°E |
| Mouth | East China Sea |
• location | Shanghai and Jiangsu |
• coordinates | 31°23′37″N 121°58′59″E / 31.39361°N 121.98306°E |
| Length | 6,300 km (3,900 mi)[1] |
| Basin size | 1,808,500 km2 (698,300 sq mi)[2] |
| Discharge | |
| • average | 30,146 m3/s (1,064,600 cu ft/s)[3] |
| • minimum | 2,000 m3/s (71,000 cu ft/s) |
| • maximum | 110,000 m3/s (3,900,000 cu ft/s)[4][5] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Datong hydrometric station, Anhui (Uppermost boundary of the ocean tide) |
| • average | (Period: 1980–2020)905.7 km3/a (28,700 m3/s)[6] 30,708 m3/s (1,084,400 cu ft/s) (2019–2020)[7] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Wuhan (Hankou) |
| • average | (Period: 1980–2020)711.1 km3/a (22,530 m3/s)[6] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Yichang (Three Gorges Dam) |
| • average | (Period: 1980–2020)428.7 km3/a (13,580 m3/s)[6] |
| Basin features | |
| Tributaries | |
| • left | Yalong, Min, Tuo, Jialing, Han |
| • right | Wu, Yuan, Zi, Xiang, Gan, Huangpu |
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| Chang Jiang | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.svg) "Yangtze River (Cháng jiāng)" in Simplified (top) and Traditional (bottom) Chinese characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 长江 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 長江 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | "Long River" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Yangtze River | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 扬子江 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 揚子江 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Tibetan name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tibetan | འབྲི་ཆུ་ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Yangtze or Yangzi (English: /ˈjæŋtsi/ or /ˈjɑːŋtsi/ simplified Chinese: 长江; traditional Chinese: 長江; pinyin: Cháng Jiāng; lit. 'long river') is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows 6,300 km (3,915 mi) in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea.[8] It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population.[9]
The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP, and the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world that is in use.[10][11] In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports to create a new economic belt alongside the river.[12]
The Yangtze flows through a wide array of ecosystems and is habitat to several endemic and threatened species, including the Chinese alligator, the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, and also was the home of the now extinct Yangtze river dolphin (or baiji) and Chinese paddlefish, as well as the Yangtze sturgeon, which is extinct in the wild. In recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, plastic pollution,[13] agricultural runoff, siltation, and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves. A stretch of the upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- ^ Yangtze River at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Zhang Zengxin; Tao Hui; Zhang Qiang; Zhang Jinchi; Forher, Nicola; Hörmann, Georg (2009). "Moisture budget variations in the Yangtze River Basin, China, and possible associations with large-scale circulation". Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment. 24 (5): 579–589. doi:10.1007/s00477-009-0338-7. S2CID 122626377.
- ^ "Main Rivers". National Conditions. China.org.cn. Archived from the original on March 13, 2012. Retrieved July 27, 2010.
- ^ "Flood types on the Yangtze River". probeinternational.org. September 12, 2002. Archived from the original on January 21, 2010.
- ^ "Three Gorges Says Yangtze River Flow Surpasses 1998". Bloomberg Businessweek. July 20, 2010. Archived from the original on July 23, 2010. Retrieved July 27, 2010.
- ^ a b c Yunping, Yang; Mingjin, Zhang; Jinhai, Zheng; Lingling, Zhu (2023). "Sediment sink-source transitions in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River estuary". Frontiers in Marine Science. 10. doi:10.3389/fmars.2023.1201533.
- ^ Zhu, Ze-Nan; Zhu, Xiao-Hua; Zhang, Chuanzheng; Chen, Minmo; Zheng, Hua; Zhang, Zhensheng; Zhong, Jiwen; Wei, Lixin; Li, Qiang; Wang, Hua; Li, Shuming; Kaneko, Arata (2021). "Monitoring of Yangtze River Discharge at Datong Hydrometric Station Using Acoustic Tomography Technology". Frontiers in Earth Science. 9: 855. Bibcode:2021FrEaS...9..855Z. doi:10.3389/feart.2021.723123.
- ^ "Yangtze River". Britannica. Retrieved May 8, 2023.
- ^ quote="Today, the Yangtze region is home to more than 400 million people, or nearly one-third of China's population. Some of China's largest cities" Archived December 13, 2017, at the Wayback Machine [1][permanent dead link]. Retrieved September 10, 2010. (in Chinese)
- ^ "Three Gorges Dam, China: Image of the Day". earthobservatory.nasa.gov. June 8, 2009. Archived from the original on October 16, 2009. Retrieved November 3, 2009.
- ^ International Rivers, Three Gorges Dam profile Archived April 20, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved August 3, 2009
- ^ "New stimulus measures by China to boost economic growth". Beijing Bulletin. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
- ^ "90 percent of ocean plastic waste comes from Asia and Africa • Earth.com". Earth.com. Archived from the original on January 9, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2019.