Yellow River

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Yellow River
Huang He
黄河
Course of the river

Course of the river

Data
location People's Republic of China
River system Yellow River
Headwaters Gyaring Lake and Ngoring Lake in the highlands of Tibet
35 ° 18 ′ 50 ″  N , 96 ° 13 ′ 57 ″  E
Source height 4500  m
muzzle Gulf of Bohai (Yellow Sea) Coordinates: 37 ° 44 ′ 41 ″  N , 119 ° 8 ′ 24 ″  E 37 ° 44 ′ 41 ″  N , 119 ° 8 ′ 24 ″  E
Mouth height 0  m
Height difference 4500 m
Bottom slope 0.93 ‰
length 4845 km
Catchment area 752,443 km²
Drain MQ
 2571 m³ / s
Big cities Lanzhou , Wuhai , Baotou , Kaifeng , Jinan

The Yellow River , and Huang He ( Chinese  黃河  /  黄河 , Pinyin Huang He , W.-G. Huang Ho , listen ? / I , outdated by mail : Hwang Ho , mong. Hatan Gol , short 河 , Hé ) called, is the current classified rivers in the north of the people's Republic of China ( East Asia ). Audio file / audio sample

After the Yangtze , it is the second longest river in China and the fourth longest single river on earth . There are different numbers for its length, depending on the measurement method: 4845 kilometers is the most common specification and the one that can be found in various lexicons; the largest length mentioned in various media is 5464 kilometers. Its catchment area covers 752,443 km².

The river gets its name because of the yellowish color that is caused by loess that has been removed and washed into the river via streams and tributaries. There is a connection to the Yangtze River via the Imperial Canal .

source

The source of the Yellow River is located in the vast expanses of the highlands of Tibet , framed by relatively flat-looking mountains, about 200 kilometers north of the mid- air line between Lhasa , the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region , and Xining in the Tibetan region of Amdo . There it is located in the Bayankara Shan mountain range (south of Kunlun Shan) about 450 kilometers east of the headwaters of the Yangtze River , west of two lakes ( Ngoring Tsho and Kyaring Tsho ) and northwest of the Star Sea (Xingsuhai) - a rocky, steppe-like area.

River course

First big bend in the river at Maqu
Yellow River near Guide ( Qinghai )
Yellow river in Lanzhou with Zhongshan Bridge
Hukou Falls , near Xi'an - bottleneck at the knee of the Huanghe

From its source, the Yellow River first crosses the two lakes Kyaring Tsho (Tsaring-nor) and Ngoring Tsho (Ngoring-nor) ( 34 ° 55 ′ 19 ″  N , 97 ° 30 ′ 43 ″  E ). Then it flows mainly in an easterly direction under the Tibetan name Ma-chu ( Tib. རྨ་ ཆུ་, "river of the peacock"; Chinese. 瑪曲  /  玛曲 , Mǎqū ) in a zigzag course through a strongly winding high mountain valley , not far from the holy mountain A'nyê Maqên .

His further course then leads northwards, where he advances to the borders of Inner Mongolia . There he describes a huge arc around the Ordos plateau , until it flows south again, flowing into the reservoir of the Sanmenxia dam . In this lake it flows from the region of the old imperial city of Xi'an to the Wei He ; this is the largest tributary of the Yellow River.

North of the Funiushan Mountains , it turns 90 ° to the east. From there, the Yellow River flows consistently eastwards over the Xiaolangdi Dam , crosses a loess plateau in the provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi and gradually leaves the mountainous region rich in gorges.

About 45 km after the city of Kaifeng , the river turns to the northeast and flows through the lowlands formed from its deposits. A little over 500 km behind Kaifeng, the Huáng Hé between Tianjin and the Shandong peninsula reaches the Gulf of Bohai , a border area of ​​the Yellow Sea .

Water flow and sediments

The upper reaches of the Yellow River in Qinghai and Gansu run through an arid area from which little water drains. The water flow of the Yellow River sinks along the Great Arch in Inner Mongolia, where more water evaporates and seeps away than flows into the river. On its way south, on the border between the provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi, the Yellow River takes in numerous tributaries, causing it to swell strongly, whereas from Zhengzhou towards its mouth it no longer has any tributaries and its water flow decreases accordingly. On an annual average, the natural discharge of the Yellow River is 1877 m³ per second, but this with peak values ​​of 33,000 m³ per second during strong flood events and periodic drying out.

When crossing the Loess Plateau , the Yellow River absorbs a great deal of sediment due to the strong erosion along its banks and the banks of its tributaries. From here on, these sediments give the river its characteristic ocher-yellow color, which gives it its name. With an average sediment load of 35 kg / m³ , the Yellow River has the highest levitation of the world's major rivers ; the sediment load of the tributaries is sometimes significantly higher.

The sediments are deposited on the lower reaches and in the mouth area of ​​the Yellow River, which leads to constant land growth on the east coast of China. Reservoirs silted up within a few years. On the lower reaches, the river created its own side dams through sedimentation, which is why the Yellow River in the North China Plain is known as a dam bank river . The current rose above the level of the wide plain until it broke through the self-created bank. In the past, this has led to repeated relocations of the river bed , which led to massive floods and associated damage.

In order to avoid future river bed shifts, measures against erosion have been taken in the loess plateau, which has reduced the amount of sediment and slowed the silting up of reservoirs. At its lower reaches, the river, some several kilometers wide, flows between ten meter high dikes in a bed that is about five meters above the level of the surrounding plain, so that tributaries can no longer flow in. The dikes have been raised several times since the 1950s, and monitoring and protective measures have been strengthened. Reservoirs on the upper reaches of the river, in particular the Xiaolangdi Dam , have strengthened the options for flood avoidance, while at the same time ensuring that the river carries a minimum amount of water for the drinking water supply and for irrigation purposes in agriculture.

While 79 percent of the river's water masses actually reached the mouth in the 1950s, this proportion has decreased to just under 30 percent today. Ever increasing withdrawals for the drinking water supply of more than 100 million people, for irrigation purposes and for industry have led to the fact that the lower reaches and the estuary fall dry for about half a year and as a result the groundwater level sinks.

History and river shifts

Historical courses of the Yellow River
Changes in the course of the river and the coastlines due to sedimentation

According to legend, Da Yu , the founder of the archaeologically unproven Xia dynasty , had the Yellow River regulated and the plain drained. What is historically certain, however, is the role that the river played in the development of Chinese civilization. Protection against floods and the use of water for irrigation purposes required coordinated joint efforts by the emerging states. The construction of the Zheng Guo Canal led to an economic strengthening of the Qin State , which later succeeded in uniting China for the first time and establishing the Qin Dynasty .

At least six major shifts in the Yellow River bed have been recorded. Until the year 602 BC The Yellow River flowed north of today's Tianjin into the Gulf of Bohai . Due to the relocations in the years 11 and 1048 , the estuary moved 500 kilometers southwards. The changes in the course of the river in the year 11 caused great hardship and rebellions such as the Red Eyebrow Rebellion or the rebellion of Mother Lü during the Han Dynasty and the Wang Mang Interregnum . The relocation of the year 1128 was triggered by human hands: In order to stop the armies of Jin State, the generals of the Song Dynasty had the levees on the Yellow River destroyed. From then on the Yellow River flowed over the Si Shui and Huai Rivers and flowed south of the Shandong Peninsula into the Yellow Sea . This destroyed the drainage system of the Huai River and affected the Imperial Canal . Minor changes in the course of the river in 1289 and 1324 weakened the Yuan dynasty , which could only pay the 150,000 forced laborers to repair the dikes with worthless paper money. After a further change in the course around the year 1363, the Ming Dynasty began to secure the lower reaches with double dykes, with an inner dike increasing the flow speed and an outer dike protecting the area from flooding. These measures could not prevent that dyke breaches led to devastating floods and that the Yellow River paved a new way to the sea in 1855. Since then, it has followed the course of the Daqing River and flows into the sea north of the Shandong Peninsula. It took 30 years to determine the course of new dikes.

The water masses of the Yellow River have been used repeatedly as a military means. In 1642, Li Zicheng had the dikes demolished when the river was besieging Kaifeng . This action led to floods, famine and a smallpox epidemic . In 1938 the Kuomintang troops caused a devastating flood to repel the Japanese invasion of China.

Reservoirs

The Yellow River has the following reservoirs:

literature

  • We Found the Source of the Yellow River. In: China Reconstructs . № 2, 1954, pp. 2-6.
  • Otto Franzius : The Huangho and its regulation.
    • Part 1, in: The construction technology. Volume 9, Issue 26, June 12, 1931, pp. 397-404.
    • Part 2, in: The construction technology. Volume 9, Issue 30, July 10, 1931, pp. 450-455.
  • M. Ottinger, C. Kuenzer, G. Liu, S. Wang, S. Dech: Monitoring Land Cover Dynamics in the Yellow River Delta from 1995 to 2010 based on Landsat 5 TM. In: Applied Geography. Volume 44, 2013, pp. 53-68. doi: 10.1016 / j.apgeog.2013.07.003 .
  • C. Kuenzer, I. Klein, T. Ullmann, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, R. Baumhauer, S. Dech: Remote Sensing of River Delta Inundation: Exploiting the Potential of Coarse Spatial Resolution, Temporally-Dense MODIS Time Series. In: Remote Sensing. Volume 7, 2015, pp. 8516-8542. doi: 10.3390 / rs70708516 .
  • C. Kuenzer, J. Huth, S. Martinis, L. Lu, S. Dech: SAR Time Series for the Analysis of Inundation Patterns in the Yellow River Delta, China. In: C. Kuenzer, S. Dech, W. Wagner (eds.): Remote Sensing Time Series. Revealing Land Surface Dynamics. (= Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing ). Springer, Berlin 2015, pp. 427–441.
  • C. Kuenzer, M. Ottinger, G. Liu, B. Sun, R. Baumhauer, S. Dech: Earth observation-based coastal zone monitoring of the Yellow River Delta: Dynamics in China's second largest oil producing region over four decades. In: Applied Geography. Volume 55, 2014, pp. 92-107. doi: 10.1016 / j.apgeog.2014.08.015 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Abbreviation for the Yellow River "Huanghe, Abbr. He (黄河, 缩: 河)", Chinese: zdic.net on zdic.net, accessed on May 9, 2018 - online
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Eduard B. Vermeer : Yellow River . In: Brunhild Staiger (Ed.): The great China Lexicon: history, geography, society, politics, economy, education, science, culture . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-534-14988-2 , pp. 240-241 .
  3. ^ Dieter Kuhn : East Asia until 1800 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-10-010843-2 , pp. 106 .
  4. ^ Dieter Kuhn: East Asia until 1800 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-10-010843-2 , pp. 312 .
  5. ^ Dieter Kuhn: East Asia until 1800 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-10-010843-2 , pp. 430 .

Web links

Commons : Yellow River  - Collection of Images