A Briefing of the Yellow River in China

【Introduction】The Yellow River (or Huang He) is the second-longest river in Asia after the Yangtze and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 km (3,395 mi).Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of western China, it flows through nine provinces and empties into the Bohai Sea near the city of Dongying in Shandong province. The Yellow River basin has an east--west extent of 1,900 kilometres (1,180 mi) and a north--south extent of 1,100 km (680 mi). Its total basin area is 742,443 square kilometres (286,659 sq mi). The Yellow River is notable for the large amount of silt it carries—1.6 billion tons annually at the point where it descends from the Loess Plateau. If it is running to the sea with sufficient volume, 1.4 billion tons are carried to the sea annually. One estimate gives 34 kilograms of silt per cubic meter as opposed to 10 for the Colorado and 1 for the Nile. This video shows the sediment control projects along the Yellow River.