Wildlife on Yangtze River

The Yangtze is home to at least three critically endangered species: The Chinese Alligator, the Finless Porpoise and the Chinese Paddlefish. (This is the only other place besides the U.S. that is native to an alligator species.) The Finless Porpoise were counted in 2010 to be 1000 exemplars. More species have become extinct in the Yangtze than in any other river in China. This is due to commercial use of the river coupled with tourism and pollution. In December 2006, the Baiji (Chinese River Dolphin) was declared functionally extinct after an extensive search of the river revealed no signs of the dolphin's inhabitance; however, one was sighted soon after.

Dams on the Yangtze River

As of 2007, there are two dams built on the Yangtze river: Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba Dam with a third one, Xiluodu Dam under construction. More dams are in planning stage, such as Wudongde, Baihetan, and Xiangjiaba.

* Tributaries

The Yangtze River has over 700 tributaries. The major tributaries (listed from upstream to downstream) with the locations of where they join the Yangtze are:

• Yalong River (Yunnan Province)
• Min River (Yibin, Sichuan Province)
• Jialing River (Chongqing)
• Wu Jiang
• Qing Jiang (Yidu, Hubei Province)
• Yuan River
• Zi Shui
• Xiang River(Yueyang, Hunan)
• Han River (Wuhan, Hubei)
• Gan River (near Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province.)

 

Bridges Across the Yangtze River

 

Until 1957, there were no bridges across the Yangtze River from Yibin to Shanghai. For millennia, travelers crossed the river by ferry. The river stood as a major geographic barrier dividing northern and southern China. In the first half of the 20th century, rail passengers from Beijing to Guangzhou and Shanghai had to disembark, respectively, at Hanyang and Pukou, and cross the river by steam ferry before resuming journeys by train. After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Soviet engineers assisted in the design and construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, a dual-use road-rail bridge, built from 1955 to 1957. It was the first bridge across the Yangtze River. The second bridge across the river was built a single-track railway bridge built upstream in Chongqing in 1959. The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, also a road-rail bridge, was the first bridge to cross the lower reaches of the Yangtze, in Nanjing. It was built after the Sino-Soviet Split and did not receive foreign assistance. Road-rail bridges were then built in Zhicheng (1971) and Chongqing (1980).

Bridge-building slowed in the 1980s before resuming in the 1990s and accelerating in the first decade of the 21st century. The Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge was built in 1992 as part of the Beijing-Jiujiang Railway. A second bridge in Wuhan was completed in 1995. By 2005, there were a total of 56 bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River between Yibin and Shanghai. These include some of the longest suspension and cable-stayed bridges in the world on the Yangtze Delta: Jiangyin Suspension Bridge (1385m, opened in 1999), Runyang Bridge (1490m, opened 2005), Sutong Bridge (1088m, opened 2008). The rapid pace of bridge construction has continued. The city of Wuhan now has six bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze.

A number of power line crossings have also been built across the river.

Names of Yangtze River

Yangtze River, also spelled Yangtse River, Yangzi River and Yangtze Kiang, is derived from Yangzi Jiang, the local name for a stretch of the lower Yangtze near Yangzhou. “Yangzi” was the name of a village and site of an ancient ferry crossing, and Jiang is one of the Chinese words for river. In the 13th century, the famous Song Dynasty official, Wen Tianxiang penned a poem entitled Yangzi Jiang. Later, Western missionaries heard the name and applied it to the entire river.

* Chinese names

The Chinese use distinct official names for different stretches of the river.

• Chang Jiang (长江/長江 Cháng Jiāng, lit. "Long River") is the name for the last 2,884 km of the Yangtze from the confluence with the Min River (Sichuan) at Yibin to its mouth at Shanghai. In ancient times, this river was simply known as Jiang or the Da Jiang (the great river). Stretches of Chang Jiang have local names such as the Chuanjiang (川江, for the Sichuan portion of the river from Yibin to Yichang), Jingjiang (荆江, for the Jingzhou section of the river) and Yangzi Jiang (near Yangzhou). The entire Chang Jiang is navigable and also known as the Golden Waterway.
• Jinsha River or Gold Sands River (金沙江 Jīnshā Jiāng, lit. "Golden Sands River") refers to 2,308 km of the Yangtze upstream from Yibin to the confluence with the Batang River, near Yushu.
• Tongtian River (通天河, lit. "river passing through heaven") refers to the 813 km stretch of the Yangtze from Yushu upstream to the confluence of the Tuotuo River and Dangqu, which together forms the Tongtian.
• Tuotuo River (沱沱河) refers to one of the headwater streams of the Yangtze. It arises from glaciers south of the Geladandong Mountain in Qinghai and flows west for 343 km where it meets with the Dangqu and forms the Tongtian.

* Tibetan names

The source and upper reaches of the Yangtze are located in ethnic Tibetan areas of Qinghai. In Tibetan, the headwater streams of the Tuotuo are called Naqinqu. The Tuotuo River is known in Tibetan as Maqu (Red River). Tuotuo is derived from the Mongolian name for the river, Tuoketuonaiwulanmulun (托克托乃乌兰木伦, or the frothy red river). The Tongtian is known in Tibetan as the Drichu (Tibetan: འབྲི་ཆུ་ ; Wylie: 'bri chu,直曲, lit. "river of the female yak"). Dangqu (当曲) another leading headwater stream of the Yangtze is Tibetan for "marsh river".

Geography of Yangtze River

The river originates from several tributaries, two of which have claims to be the source. The Chinese government has recognized the source of the Tuotuo tributary at the base of a glacier lying on the west of Geladandong Mountain in the Dangla Mountain Range on the eastern part of the Tibetan plateau. However, the geographical source (i.e., longest river distance from the sea) lies in wetlands at N32˚36’14” E94˚30’44 and 5170 meters above sea level at the head of the Dan Qu tributary. These tributaries join and the river then runs eastward through Qinghai, turning southward down a deep valley at the border of Sichuan and Tibet to reach Yunnan. In the course of this valley, the river's elevation drops from above 5000 m to less than 1000 m. The headwaters of the Yangtze are situated at an elevation of about 4,900 m (16,100 ft). In its descent to sea level, the river falls to an altitude of 305 m (1,001 ft) at Yibin, Sichuan Province, the head of navigation for riverboats, and to 192 m (630 ft) at Chongqing. Between Chongqing and Yichang (I-ch'ang), at an altitude of 40 m (130 ft) and a distance of about 320 km (200 mi), it passes through the spectacular Yangtze Gorges, which are noted for their natural beauty but are dangerous to shipping.

It enters the basin of Sichuan at Yibin. While in the Sichuan basin, it receives several mighty tributaries, increasing its water volume significantly. It then cuts through Mount Wushan bordering Chongqing and Hubei to create the famous Three Gorges. Eastward of the Three Gorges, Yichang is the first city on the Yangtze Plain.

After entering Hubei, the Yangtze receives more water from thousands of lakes. The largest of these lakes is Dongting Lake, which is located on the border of Hunan and Hubei provinces, and is the outlet for most of the rivers in Hunan. At Wuhan, it receives its biggest tributary, the Han River, bringing water from its northern basin as far as Shaanxi.

At the northern tip of Jiangxi, Lake Poyang, the biggest freshwater lake in China, merges into the river. The river then runs through Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, receiving more water from innumerable smaller lakes and rivers, and finally reaches the East China Sea at Shanghai.

Four of China's five main freshwater lakes contribute their waters to the Yangtze River. Traditionally, the upstream part of the Yangtze River refers to the section from Yibin to Yichang; the middle part refers to the section from Yichang to Hukou County, where Lake Poyang meets the river; the downstream part is from Hukou to Shanghai. It is home to many thousands of people.

The origin of the Yangtze River is dated to about 45 million years ago in the Eocene. But many people do not accept this point.

Characteristics of Yangtze River

The Yangtze flows into the East China Sea and was navigable by ocean-going vessels up a thousand miles from its mouth even before the Three Gorges Dam was built. As of June 2003, this dam spans the river, flooding Fengjie, the first of a number of towns affected by the massive flood control and power generation project. This is the largest comprehensive irrigation project in the world and has a significant impact on China's agriculture. Its proponents argue that it will free people living along the river from floods that have repeatedly threatened them in the past and will offer them electricity and water transport—though at the expense of permanently flooding many existing towns (including numerous ancient cultural relics) and causing large-scale changes in the local ecology.
Opponents of the dam point out that there are three different kinds of floods on the Yangtze River: floods which originate in the upper reaches, floods which originate in the lower reaches, and floods along the entire length of the river. They argue that the Three Gorges dam will actually make flooding in the upper reaches worse and have little or no impact on floods which originate in the lower reaches. Twelve hundred years of low water marks on the river were recorded in the inscriptions and the carvings of carp at Baiheliang, now submerged.
The Yangtze is flanked with metallurgical, power, chemical, auto, building materials and machinery industrial belts and high-tech development zones. It is playing an increasingly crucial role in the river valley's economic growth and has become a vital link for international shipping to the inland provinces. The river is a major transportation artery for China, connecting the interior with the coast.
The river is one of the world's busiest waterways. Traffic includes commercial traffic transporting bulk goods such as coal as well as manufactured goods and passengers. Cargo transportation reached 795 million tons in 2005. River cruises several days long, especially through the beautiful and scenic Three Gorges area, are becoming popular as the tourism industry grows in China.
Flooding along the river has been a major problem. The rainy season in China is May and June in areas south of Yangtze River, and July and August in areas north of it. The huge river system receives water from both southern and northern flanks, which causes its flood season to extend from May to August. Meanwhile, the relatively dense population and rich cities along the river make the floods more deadly and costly. The most recent major floods were the 1998 Yangtze River Floods, but more disastrous were the 1954 Yangtze River Floods, killing around 30,000 people. Other severe floods included those of 1911, which killed around 100,000, 1931 (145,000 dead), and 1935 (142,000 dead).

Yangtze River

The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng  is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for 6,418 kilometres (3,988 mi) from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the biggest rivers by discharge volume in the world. The Yangtze drains one-fifth of China's land area and its river basin is home to one-third of China's population. Along with the Yellow River, the Yangtze is the most important river in the history, culture and economy of China. The prosperous Yangtze River Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP. The river is an important physical and cultural dividing line between North and South China. Chinese living north of the Yangtze speak varying dialects of Mandarin. Most of the provinces south of the river have native Sinitic languages that are unintelligible to Mandarin-speakers. The Yangtze River flows through a wide array of ecosystems and is itself habitat to several endemic and endangered species including the Yangtze River dolphin (now extinct), Chinese alligator, and the Yangtze sturgeon. For thousands of years, man has used the river for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking and war. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world. In recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, agricultural run-off, 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 Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.