The yellow River is the second longest river in China, with a length of 5,464-kilomete after the Yangtze River , and is regarded as the mother river by all the Chinese people.

Originating in the Bayankala Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, the Yellow River flows through nine provinces in China: Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Shandong Provinces and empties into the Bohai Sea. The Yellow River basin has an

east-west extent of 1900 km and a north-south extent of 1100 km, and total basin area is 752,443 km2.

The vigorous upper reaches of the Yellow River starts in Qinghai Province to Hekouzhen in Inner Mongolia. This magnificent river flows quietly, irrigating the farmlands and nurturing the people in the middle section, which reaches ends in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. The Yellow River's lower reaches ends in a delta on the Bohai Sea.

What are the features of the different geographic stages of the Yellow River?

The Yellow River is commonly divided into three stages: the upper reaches, middle reaches and lower reaches.

The topography of the region of the Yellow River's Upper Reaches varies markedly from area to area, composing of mountainous terrain, rangeland, farmland and grassland. Only 9% of the area is cultivable, but there are several well-irrigated sites. With abundant hydropower resources, they are being exploited along the gorge sections of the channel.

Loess plateau is the main feature of the middle reaches, which is badly eroded into thousands of deep gullies and is the main source of sediment production for the river. About 25% of the land is cultivable, and forest coverage is about 11%. Its Wei River valley is accredited to be the "cradle of Chinese civilization," and together with the Fen River valley, they form the most thickly populated areas of the region.

The lower reaches of the river include the floodplain between the dike embankments and the area outside the levees fed by river diversions, which incorporates the river's alluvial plain in Henan and the North China Plain. The irrigation of about 15,000 sq km area is fed by Yellow River. The climate is dry and windy in spring, hot and wet in summer, dry in fall, and moderately cold and dry in winter.

How does Yellow River get its name as China's Sorrow?

As the most heavily silt-laden river in the world, the Yellow River got its name from the muddiness of its water, which bears a perennial ochre-yellow color, but frequent devastating flooding, largely due to the elevated river bed in its lower course, has also earned it the unenviable name "China's Sorrow".

Records indicate that the river's levees were breached more than 1,500 times

and its course changed 26 times in the last three millennia. A major course change taking place in 1194 A.D. was probably the most devastating economically. Flood water rushed onto the Huai River basin south of the Yellow River and took over Huai River's drainage system for the next 700 years. The river adopted its present course in 1897 after the final course change occurred in 1855.

Why is there so much sediment in the Yellow River?

River's sediment comes entirely from the middle region of the river's basin, draining a loess-covered terrain consisting of a wind-blown silt deposit of high uniformity.

Besides, from July to September , rain bursts which account for almost half of the annual precipitation erode loess cliffs rapidly and ?bring a huge amount of the eroded silt into the gullies, transported laboriously for a distance over 1,000 km before it is flushed out to sea.

In its lower reaches, there is an averaging 37 kg of sediment per cm of water at the present time. An average of 1.6 billion tons of sediment enters the river channel at Zhengzhou annually, of which about 1.2 billion tons is carried out to sea, leaving behind a substantial amount to contribute to the silting of the river channel.

What does it mean, being a leader of Left-wing writers?

Lu Xun, a strong individualist, had come under attack from the Communist writers soon after his escape from Peking. After a series of spirited debates, Lu Hsün finally joined the Communist movement and became the nominal leader of the League of Left-wing Writers in 1930. An idol of the youth, he was now mainly a miscellaneous essayist, dissipating his creative energy in an endless series of polemics. He also translated a great deal and refrained from writing fiction works. He wrote a collection of satiric fables, Ku-shih hsinpien, which sadly marked the decline of his talent.

In history, what has been done to control the high sediment load?

Throughout history much of the river management effort has been devoted to improving the flood prevention capability of the levee-lined channel. During high-water stages the entire population residing along the levees would be mobilized to keep a tight vigilance on the conditions of the levees looking out constantly for seepage leaks anywhere along its length.

It achieved notable success in the period from 200 to 800 A.D. when the channel was kept to its course. But, keeping pace with an ever-rising channel bed was no easy task, and the protection offered by levees could at best be haphazard, especially at times of war.

What is the main food of the Yellow River valley?

The main staple food in this part of the country consists of wheat and millet. Wheat or millet flour is made into noodles or dumplings before consumption. Wheat and millet must be grounded into flour before they are made into noodles or dumplings, and therefore stone grinding rollers are common sights in all villages.

Usually after harvest the entire crop will be dried in the sun before it is processed. ?Large quantities of corn are strung up into towers, resting against houses to be dried under the sun. After the corn is dried, the corn kernels are stripped from the cobs. The kernels are then grounded into flour before being consumed as food.

Why Yellow river enjoys such an important state in Chinese culture and history?

The Yellow River is called "the cradle of Chinese civilization", as its basin is the birthplace of the northern Chinese civilizations, and is the most prosperous region in early Chinese history. As the Chinese regard yellow as an token of loess land, the emperor, the yellow skin and the legendary Chinese Dragon Yellow River is not only referred to as a river, but "the Mother River". It bears special significance as the symbol of the Chinese nation, the spirit of the Chinese people and more importantly, civilization itself.

The reign of Chinese ancient emperors of several dynasties promotes the development of ancient Chinese civilizations to the peak, with Yuan Dynasty in glittering gems. Gunpowder, the compass, paper making, printing, poetry and Song porcelain which are rooted in Yellow River civilization, not only promote Chinese culture development, but also spread to the rest of the world, and has made an important contribution to the culture development of human beings.

Who are the famous figures in the Yellow River civilization?

In the Chinese version of history, history begins with three semi-mystical and legendary individuals who taught the Chinese ?people the art of civilization around 2800-2600 BC. Suiren-shi taught the Chinese to make fire by drilling wood, and Fu Hsi was the inventor of hunting, trapping and fishing and Shennong-shi who invented agriculture and mercantilism.

?The Chinese believed that the Three Cultural Heroes were followed by the

Three Sage Kings: Yao (around 2350 BC), Shun (around 2250 BC), and Yu (rule began in 2205 BC). These Sage Kings ruled with perfect wisdom, clarity, and virtue. Still, Chinese historians believed the Sage Kings' rule to be the most virtuous period in Chinese history.

After that, many ancient Chinese emperors, like Emperor Qin Shi Huang and Genghis khan, pushed the Yellow River civilization to a new level of refinement, grace and spirituality which drew the attention of the whole world.