Known as the mother river by all the Chinese people, the 5,464-kilometer (about 3,395 miles) Yellow River is the second longest river in China after the Yangtze River . The headwaters of this mighty river lie in Kunlun Mountains in northwestern Qinghai Province. It runs through nine provinces and autonomous regions on its way to the Bohai Sea. It is not exaggerating to say that Yellow River is a melting port, because there are more than 30 branches and countless streams feeding it through its course. The vigorous upper reaches of the Yellow River starts in Qinghai Province to Hekouzhen in Inner Mongolia. This magnificent river flows quietly, like a shy girl in this section, irrigating the farmlands and nurturing the people. Its middle reaches ends at Taohuayu in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. Here the Yellow River splits the Loess Plateau in half, forming the longest continuous gorge in the whole drainage area of the river. The Yellow River's lower reaches ends in a delta on the Bohai Sea.
It is agreed upon by almost all the Chinese people that the Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization, the spiritual home of the Chinese people. It is the waters of the Yellow River and its spirit that nurture the whole Chinese nation. For thousands of years, the Yellow River has been admiring by literary giants, artists, as well as by the common people. The Yellow River is not just several letters, nor is it just the name of a yellow-ochre-colored river. It bears special significance: the symbol of the Chinese nation, the spirit of the Chinese people and more importantly, civilization itself.
Neolithic (7,000 BC-3,700 BC), Bronze (3,700 BC-2,700 BC) and Iron Age Sites (770 BC), and so on can be found in the Yellow River's drainage basin, which had been the center of ancient Chinese culture since the Azilian (Middle Stone Age). Here, the story of three cultural heroes: Suiren-shi who taught the Chinese to make fire by drilling wood, Fu Hsi who was the inventor of hunting, trapping and fishing and Shennong-shi who invented agriculture, was spread. It was these three legendary individuals that began the development of civilization in the Yellow River basin. After that, many ancient Chinese emperors, like Emperor Qin Shi Huang , Genghis khan (1162-1227, grandfather of Kublai Khan who is the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)) pushed the Yellow River civilization to a wholly new level of refinement, grace and spirituality which drew the attention of the whole world.
Rich cultural relics, history and gorgeous natural sceneries make the Yellow River a fine place to visit. Along the Yellow River, there are dozens of worthwhile attractions. They are stretching arms and waiting for your visiting!
Geographical Introduction of the Yellow River:
The Yellow River is the second longest river in China only inferior to Yangtze River . It originates from the northern slope of the majestic Bayankera Mountains in Qinghai Province, traversing through nine provinces of Qinghai Province, Sichuan Province, Gansu Province, Ningxia Hui Nationality Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi Province, Shanxi Province, Henan Province and Shandong Province before flowing into the Bohai Sea. More than 30 branches and countless streams join the Yellow River on the way to the sea. Being the river with the most excessive silt in the world, the Yellow River gets its name from the muddiness of its water, which bears a perennial ochre-yellow color.
Generally speaking, the Yellow River is divided into three stages. In the upper reaches, the river starts from its original passes in Qinghai Province, running 3,472 kilometers (about 2,157 miles) through mountains and arid regions, swamps and grasslands just before it makes a sharp turn to the south at Hekouzhen of Inner Mongolia. In the middle reaches, it flows 1,206 kilometers (about 749 miles) to Taohuayu in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. At this stage, this part of the mighty Yellow River runs through the vast region of Loess Plateau, cutting the plateau into two parts like a sharp sword: the left side of the river is Shanxi Province and the right side is Shaanxi Province. The Yellow River has become the natural geographical demarcation of the two provinces. And at the same time, many of branches take a great amount of mud and sand into it, so this area is the main silt source of Yellow River. A famous engineering project is located in this section: the Xiaolangdi Multipurpose Dam, which is used for flood control, ice jam control, siltation control, irrigation, and water supply, as well as generating hydroelectric power. In the lower reaches, it flows 786 kilometers (about 488 miles) through the North China Plain, ending at the delta of Bohai Sea. In this section, excessive sediment deposits of the river have raised the riverbed several meters over the surrounding grounds. Thus, the world famous 'River above Ground' emerges.
Yellow River Civilization :
From the earliest times in the history of humankind, water, in the form of lakes, seas, and especially rivers, has played an essential role in the development of civilization. This is a truth universal to cultures throughout the world. And the great amount of archeological information available about ancient Chinese civilization tells us that their ways of life were greatly influenced by the Yellow and Yangtze River civilizations. The Yellow River, in particular, was essential to the development of Chinese civilization.
In Chinese history, and in the history of human civilization, the Yellow River is not simply a set of characters on a page and the name of a river. In fact, it stands for a kind of culture and civilization. Undoubtedly, the Yellow River civilization has played a very great role in the development of civilization across the globe.
For thousands of years, the Yellow River has been known as the mother river of the Chinese nation, both in the writing of the poets and scribes, and in the hearts of the Chinese people. Almost all the Chinese see themselves as the children of Yellow River. It is said that Egypt is the gift vouchsafed by the Nile. If there were no Nile, then it is hard to see how there could be an Egyptian civilization. The Yellow River has the same relationship with China. If China had no Yellow River, the Chinese wouldn't have a place to focus their spiritual energies on.
Yellow River drainage basin is the birthplace of Chinese nation and meanwhile it is the cradle of Chinese civilization. In this vast cradle, Yellow River civilization, which is the principal part of the whole Chinese civilization and plays a crucial role in the history of civilization development, grew with vitality. It had stood the test of almost all kinds of upheavals and difficulties, and finally created the continuous Chinese civilization.
From the Xia (21st-16th century BC) and Shang (16th-11th century BC) Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Yellow River area was always the center of politics, economy and culture. In addition, in terms of science and technology, this area is in the leading position at all times. There are many ingredients of Yellow River civilization, such as potteries, silks, bronze, characters, and so on. Commonly, Yellow River civilization came into being between the year 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, which covered over 2,000 years long. During this period of time, a group of regional civilizations were booming. But unfortunately in later time, some of them intermitted; some went to the low tide. Only Yellow River civilization assimilated the essences of other regional civilization and developed itself into a higher level. The phase of the development of Yellow River civilization was also a period for its sublimation. And the epoch of the prosperity of this civilization was the historical moment when China stepped into the feudal empire civilization.
The overwhelming Yellow River is the symbol of Chinese nation. From the towering Kunlun Mountain to the immense Pacific Ocean, the Yellow River passes through the grasslands, getting over the deserts, splitting the Loess Plateau and moistening the land. It is this melting pot of hundreds of rivers that gestates brilliant Chinese culture, cleansing the capacious bosoms of the Chinese people and nurturing the largest nation in the world---the Chinese nation.
And again, to some extent, Yellow River is also the symbol of the spirit of the Chinese people: grittiness, industriousness and assiduity. It is a bridge connecting the whole land of China, linking the Chinese history and joining all the Chinese people all over the world with their motherland: China.
