How long is the Yangtze River and where does it rank in the world?
The Yangtze River is 6,236 kilometers long, making it the longest river in China and the third-longest in the world. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume.
Questions about Yangtze
Short answers, pulled from the story.
Where does the Yangtze River start and end?
The Yangtze rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, at the head of the Dam Qu tributary. It flows generally eastward to the East China Sea at Shanghai.
Why is the Yangtze River called the Yangtze in English?
The English name Yangtze comes from Yángzǐ Jiāng, the local name for the Lower Yangtze in the region of Yangzhou, likely from an ancient ferry crossing called Yángzǐ. Europeans arriving in the delta applied this regional name to the whole river. In Chinese the river is called Cháng Jiāng, meaning Long River.
What animals went extinct in the Yangtze River?
The Yangtze river dolphin, or baiji, was declared functionally extinct in December 2006, ending a lineage dating back seventy million years. The Chinese paddlefish, last definitely recorded near Yibin in 2003, is also now considered extinct.
How deadly were the Yangtze River floods?
The 1931 Central China floods are considered among the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded, with death toll estimates ranging from 145,000 to between 3.7 million and 4 million. The 1954 floods killed an estimated 33,000 people, and the 1998 floods left 3,704 dead and 15 million homeless.
What is the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River?
The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest power station in the world by installed capacity, at 22.5 gigawatts. It created an impassable iron barrier that greatly reduced the river's biodiversity, though it releases water to mimic natural flooding for carp breeding downstream.