The Yellow River: The Central World of Ancient Chinese
China is located on an immense and steep continental slope, unlike any other in the world. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, located in the western part of China, is the highest and geologically youngest plateau on Earth. It is known as the Roof of the World, with an average elevation of 4000-4500 meters. Chinese saying states, "The higher the mountain, the higher the water." The vast and cloud-kissed Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the largest and highest natural water tower on Earth, storing snow precipitated from water vapor emitted by the world's oceans and seas. As the compacted snow melts away under the sun, drop by drop, the liberated water flows naturally downward to the east and accumulates into tiny streams, which then converge into mighty torrents that empty back into the ocean.
Illustration: relief map of china
The Yellow River is the second longest river in China. It runs 5464 kilometers (3395 miles). The headwaters of this mighty river lie in Kunlun Mountains in northwestern Qinghai Province. It runs through nine provinces and autonomous regions on its way to the Bohai Sea. It is not exaggerating to say that Yellow River is a melting port, because there are more than 30 branches and countless streams feeding it through its course. The vigorous upper reaches of the Yellow River starts in Qinghai Province to Hekouzhen in Inner Mongolia. This magnificent river flows quietly, like a shy girl in this section, irrigating the farmlands and nurturing the people. Its middle reaches ends at Taohuayu in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. Here the Yellow River flows torrentially and splits the Loess Plateau in half, forming the longest continuous gorge in the whole drainage area of the river. The Yellow River ends in a delta on the Bohai Sea. In this section, the river flows slowly on flatter areas, huge amount of yellow silts the river carries is deposited, raising the riverbed above ground level in the flat North China plain.
Lower reaches of the Yellow River: As the river reaches flatter areas the current slows,
depositing massive amounts of yellow silt and elevating the riverbed.
It is agreed upon by almost all the Chinese people that the Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization, the spiritual home of the Chinese people. It is the waters of the Yellow River and its spirit that nurture the whole Chinese nation. For thousands of years, the Yellow River has been admiring by literary giants, artists, as well as by the common people. The Yellow River is not just several letters, nor is it just the name of a yellow-ochre-colored river. It bears special significance: the symbol of the Chinese nation, the spirit of the Chinese people and more importantly, civilization itself.
The sites of Neolithic (8,000 BC-3,500 BC), Bronze (3,500 BC-2,700 BC) and Iron Ages (770 BC) can be found in the Yellow River's drainage basin, which had been the center of ancient Chinese culture since the Middle Stone Age. The Yellow Emperor (Huangdi) (c. 2650 BC) is one of the five legendary emperors of China's Neolithic period. He was born and lived along the middle reaches of the Yellow River, which is called Central Plains (zhong yuan) or Central State (zhong guo), the country’s name of China in Chinese. The Yellow Emperor is considered to be one of the earliest ancestors of Chinese civilization. He founded a unified state and made great contribution to many aspects of Chinese civilization, including agriculture, words, written symbols (characters), musical instruments, and medicine. Chinese still pride themselves on being the offspring of the Yellow Emperor. After that, many ancient Chinese emperors, like Emperor Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BC), Genghis khan (1162-1227, grandfather of Kublai Khan who is the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)) pushed the Yellow River civilization to a wholly new level of refinement, grace and spirituality that drew the attention of the whole world.
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