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The Yangtze River is the 3rd longest river in the world and the longest river in China and Asia. It is 3,917 miles long and trails only the Nile and Amazon Rivers in length.
The river originates at a glacier on the Tibetan plateau and ends as it flows into the East China Sea and is China's major inland waterway where tons of shipping flows annually. It is estimated that 350 million people live around the Yangtze River.
The Yangtze flows through the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu as well as the city of Shanghai. The most scenic parts of the river are probably the Three Gorges area where the river flows through 3 scenic gorges, the Qutang Gorge, Wuxia Gorge and Xiling Gorge.
The Yangtze river has 6 major tributaries including the Yalong River, the Minjiang River, the Jialing River, the Tuo He River, the Han River and the Fushui River. In addition four of China's five largest lakes also feed the Yangtze as well as the runoff from the numerous mountain ranges it flows through.
The Yangtze River has 3 dams along its length. The Three Gorges Dam, the Gezhouba Dam and the Xiluodu Dam which is still under construction. The Three Gorges Dam is currently the largest hydroelectric power station in the world and was completed in 2008 under controversy from environmentalists and locals forced to move from their homes.
The Chinese Alligator and the Chinese Paddlefish are both endangered species which live along the Yangtze. The Chinese River Dolphin or Baiji was declared functionally extinct in 2006 but there have been reports of sightings since and in such a large river one can have hope the species still survives.
The Yangtze river has seen some incredible human achievements. Martin Strel, a Slovenian, swam the river from the Tiger Leaping Gorge to Shanghai, a distance of 2860 miles. In 1986 teams of Chinese rafters followed the river from its source to its mouth. The Chinese people became enraptured with the story and 10 of the rafters drowned along the way.
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