China's Rivers (4)

China also has a large number of continental rivers, which either disappear into the desert or flow into inland lakes. They are located mainly in the northwest, and drain one-third of the country’s total landmass. The Tarim River in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is fed by glaciers and snow from the Kunlun Mountains and the Pamir Plateau. It flows for 2,179 kilometers and is China’s longest continental river.

One of China’s major problems is that her rivers are not well distributed. Ninety percent of them are in the south, and many areas in the north suffer from severe water shortage, at least for part of each year. The rivers north of the Huaihe and the Qinling Mountain Range have a large flow in summer, but either dry up or freeze in winter. As a result, navigation and trade between the north and the south were once severely restricted. To solve this problem, the Chinese constructed the Grand Canal, still one of the nation’s major transportation arteries. The canal stretches for more than 1,794 kilometers from Beijing to Hangzhou in the south. It flows through four provinces, and links the Changjiang, Huaihe, Huanghe, Haihe and Qiantang river systems. The canal has provided an important economic link between the north and the south and has now become a major tourist attraction.

Lakes of all sizes are scattered throughout China but are more concentrated on the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Changjiang River Plain and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The lakes on the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Changjiang River Plain have the function of regulating floods, and they are the sources of farmland irrigation, and freshwater aquatic products.

On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau there are large alpine lakes, most of which are continental saltwater lakes. The Qinghai Lake, covering 4,583 square kilometers, is the largest saltwater lake in China as well as the largest lake in the country.

The largest freshwater lake in the country is the Poyang Lake in Jiangxi Province, covering 3,583 square kilometers.