Most of China’s rivers flow from west to eash into the Pacific Ocean except a few in southwest China that flow to the south. The rivers in China total 200,000 kilometers in length and more than 1,500 of them drain an area of 1,000 square kilometers or large each. The total flow of these rivers is 2,700 bilion cubic meters. This is the sama as the total flow of the rivers in Europe.
China’s largers rivers originate on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau and thus have a high drop. Therefore China is very rich in hydropower resouces, leading the world with 680 million kilowatss hydropower reserves.
The Yangtze River (Changjiang) is more than 6,000 kilometers long and become the largest river in China. It has a catchment area of 1,800,000 square kilometers and is the major inland river transport artery in China.
The Yelow River (Huanghe) is stretching over 5,464 kilometers. This is the China’s second largest. Its area covering 700,000 square kilometers and believed as the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilization and has a wealth of historic sites and relics, many of them buried underground.
China also has a famous man made waterway. The Grand Canal which is running from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, in the south.
China has also many natural lakes, most of them scatterd in the Middle Lower Yangtze palins and the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. China’s largest freshwater lake is Lake Poyang with an area of 3,583 square kilometers and the largest salt lake is Lake Qinghai in the west with an area of 4,583 square kilometers.
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