Talk:Yellow River

message: I've just noticed that the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) is literally the "long river" and that the Huang He is literally the "yellow river". Since they seem to share no character in common, are there multiple Chinese characters that are all best translated as river in English or are we just fudging the translations somewhat... in which case the qualification of said translations as "literal" is inappropiate. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 17:14, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)
:Jiang in general, is bigger than He.  (At least, when it enters the ocean.)  The problem is that in these two particular instances, historical naming takes precedence.  Huang He was settled around Xi'an and Xiangyang (btw, why does Xi'an have that '?) at which point the river is not quite wide enough to be called a Jiang.  On the other hand, the Yangtze was settled more in the east (Shanghai area), where it was wider.  So it rated a Jiang.  At least, that's how it was explained to me.  -Vina 06:07, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: the existence of the apostrophe in xi'an is to identify it as a two syllable name, as distinct from the (very) common single syllable xian.  If written with Chinese characters, the distinction is obvious.--Baoluo 02:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In the modern Chinese usage, vina is correct: "Jiang" usually is a bigger river than "He". But for the "Chang Jiang" and the "Huang He", they called so also has some historic origins. In ancient China, the rivers were neither called "Jiang" nor "He", but called "Shui". "Shui" literally means water. There still some rivers has an ancient name with "Shui", e.g, Hanshui. At that time, "Jiang Shui" was the name for the Chang Jiang and "He Shui" was the name for the Huang He. In other word, only Chang Jiang can be called "Jiang" and only Huang He can be called "He". Thousandes years later, the meaning of "Jiang" and "He" were generalized and now they can be used for any rivers. But Chang Jiang still holds the name of Jiang and Huang He still has the name of He. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.174.39.232 (talk) 23:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "btw, why does Xi'an have that '?"  To distinguish it from Xian, which is also a valid pinyin word.  That is, Xi'an is two characters (one with pinyin Xi, one with pinyin an), while Xian is one character.Jbradfor 16:12, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Chinese character for 'River'

message: The characteristics section needs cleanup.  In particular, the silt statistics need units of tons per some unit time.  The section is somewhat vague in other places and needs citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.209.124.66 (talk) 04:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added time units which I presume are annual flows, which is the standard for discussing river silt loads (high seasonal flow variations in many rivers, including this one, render a daily number as misleading).  I'll remove the cleanup tag.  69.228.205.165 02:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Characteristics

message: Does the "listen" link refer to Cantosese, Mandarin, or there's no difference in pronunciation here? LMB — Preceding undated comment added 22:18, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's Mandarin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.237.224.43 (talk) 09:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: I have noticed some problems with organization and redundancy in this article. In particular, the comment about "When the Yellow River runs clear" being equivalent to "When hell freezes over" appears twice, under "Name" and under "History and Culture." What do you guys think, should that be under the Name heading, Culture, or not at all? RedSkull619 04:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organization 

message: "In Kaifeng, Yellow River is forty meters above the ground level."
40 meters is too high for a river. I guess it should be forty feet.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.174.39.232 (talk) 22:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Too high

message: I made a number of changes to make the text more readable. I also made the ranking match the List of rivers by length. The "Yellow River Hydrology Committee" apparently only occurs in the context of this article. The Chinese government web site calls it the "Yellow River Conservancy Committee" and it looks like it uses a different division of the river, but since I could not verify that one way or the other (without spending more time than I have right now), I left the sections as is. Perhaps some one can check out the Physical Geography page on the Yellow River Conservancy Committee website to figure out whether the division is the same as that given in the article. Bear475 02:51, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: General readability and Misc. Changes

message: I removed the following text, which I'm pretty sure was silly vandalism:
::It's also believed to have been formed after a Chinese holiday called "Drink until you Pop Day".
It was added by User:24.34.156.64 .  I've heard of strange mistranslations before with Chinese and Japanese (All your base are belong to us) and also terms that sound like mistranslations but aren't(Married Couple's Slices of Lung).  This is why I wasn't 100% sure. Ufwuct 22:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Drink until you Pop Day"

message: The intro claims that in 1977, the concentration reached 920 kg/m³.  Water has a density near 1000 kg/m³.  Assuming that the silt has an average density of about 2500 kg/m³ (it couldn't be too dense or it wouldn't be carried by the current for very long), 36.8% of the volume of each m³ of "river" would be sediment, while the mass of each m³ of "river" would be 1552 kg, which is about 1.55 times the normal density of water.  While this seems highly unusual, I would love to have my suspicions proved wrong, as I think it would be very interesting.  Also, I'm hoping that what ever source is found mentions the concentration at some representative part of the river (like the middle of the river downstream of the loess). Ufwuct 22:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The average is "37 kg of sediment per cu m of water at the present time" http://www.cis.umassd.edu/~gleung/geofo/geogren.html I think what is meant is that if you take a cubic meter of river water and evaporate it you would get 37 kg silt. Likewise for the 920 kg/m, after evaporation you would have 920 kg silt. I did some searching for the source of the 1977 figure, but could not find an accessible source on the internet. Proper sampling would require some sophistication. Water in a quiet backwater might contain less silt than the average, for example. Fred Bauder 15:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

text: In Physics of Desertification By M. H. A. Hassan, Farouk. El-Baz, Farouk El-Bax at page 17 there is a statement that at Shanhaien (east of Xi'an) sediment has been measured at 46%. It does not specify weight or volume. Fred Bauder 15:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 920 kg/m³

message: Is this a second, lesser known three gorges dam on this river? The link goes to the big one on the Chang Jiang that was recently completed.Ngchen 04:24, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This one is called “Sanmenxia” dam,which was completed in 1956,but turned out to be a disaster. Frost-CHN (talk) 06:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Three Gorges Dam 

message: It would be useful to show a context map.  For people not familiar with the municipal geography of China, it's hard to see from the existing map that this river flows across half of the country. -- Beland (talk) 17:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Context map request 

message: The Britannica (1878) article on China prominently mentions that the early course of the Yellow River in Kokonor (=Qinghai, also a former part of Greater Mongolia) was known as “Ah-urh-tan” or "Golden River". Presumably that's a transcription of "Алтан Гол", but maybe it's a peculiar Classical Mongolian form since Google mostly returns nonsense. In any case, we should include it and add redirects once we have a good source for the actual Mongolian form of the name. — LlywelynII 22:58, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Former names

message: I found 10 of the changes in the river flow and thier dates. Here's the link:
*
It might not be correct.
-Supermonkey
Jasonxu98 (talk) 21:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Direction of the River 

message: The article says that the river was found by I. P. Freely, but gives no citation. Also, it would be nice to have a short biography of such an important personage as Mr/Ms Freely in order for the encyclopedia to be complete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.231.65.11 (talk) 02:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: After investigating with Google, I believe it is a scatological hoax. As such, I will be removing the sentence. If a real reference exists, feel free to add it back. Ngchen (talk) 05:00, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: /facepalm. — LlywelynII 17:22, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yellow River found by I. P. Freely? 

message: The article desperately needs (1) maps of the various major paths of the river at various points in Chinese history and (2) a map of the changing coastline or at least total accumulation in the historic period. EB 1911 has one city coastal in the Confucian era and ~100 mi. inland by the 20th c. -114.91.65.94 (talk) 03:10, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear, hear. — LlywelynII 17:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Maps needed

message: The drop percentage is listed as 0.01% in the upper reaches - surely this should be 0.1%?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.105.192.18 (talk) 12:53, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in data 

message: Over a period of 3-4,000 years - a very vague and lengthy period - it is wrong to state that there was the precise number of "1,593" floods.  It would be more appropriate to say approximately 1,500 floods.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 23:48, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Floods 

message: The section on lower reaches should split off with a delta+estuary+outflow zone in the sea section. The section on upper reaches should similarly be split with a specific section on the headwaters and sources. 
65.94.47.63 (talk) 11:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delta & headwaters 

message: The map of the  Yellow River is incorrectly altered.  
Beijing is not on the coast, it is 170 km inland.  Where it is presently indicated should be Tientsin.   Thanks,  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.236.44.98 (talk) 18:33, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  yellow river map 

message: Stated in the intro to be the second longest river in Asia, and 6th longest in world. The list of longest rivers has Nile, Amazon, Yangtse,  Mississippi, Yenisei and Huang He 6th.
By any normal definition, Yenisei River system is in Asia and therefore Huang He would be 6th longest in the world and THIRD longest in Asia, behind Yangtse and Yenisei. Eregli bob (talk) 20:09, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You're entirely right. Not sure why this hasn't been corrected before. 62.107.209.193 (talk) 17:48, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a good point Tong tsu shi (talk) 01:21, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second longest river in Asia ? 

message: Is the map correct pertaining to the location of the Luo River?  The Wikipedia page on the Luo River says that it originates in Southwest China flowing through Lushi, Luoning, Yiyang, Luoyang, Yanshi, and joins the Yellow river at Gongyi.  I followed the river on Google Earth and it appears to come from the Southwest.  I see it at Luoyang and farther to the Southwest at the Guxian Dam/Reservoir.  Thanks. VFF0347 (talk) 21:55, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map Reference - Luo River 

message: It's probably just an accident of the British bias in the  template, but the current page is a bit wobbly. Fwiw, this edit established the usage of this page as American English. Kindly maintain it consistently pending a new consensus. — LlywelynII 18:24, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:ENGVAR]]

message: The first paragraph doesn't make sense.  It claims this is the second longest river in Asia - following two other rivers.  Following two other rivers would possibly make it the third longest but definitely not the second longest. Lbthomsen (talk) 10:16, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone fixed it. Art LaPella (talk) 22:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  First paragraph - second longest river 

message: The yellow river is actually yellow.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.93.177 (talk) 19:02, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Which is why loess is called "yellow earth" in Chinese. — LlywelynII 23:34, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yellow River 

message: The article claims that the deposition of two millennia have made the riverbed meters higher than the surrounding land on its lower courses.
(a) Chinese efforts to control the river far predate the imperial era, which itself began well over 2000 years ago; but
(b) the lower course of the river is less than 200 years old and the deposition before that time has nothing whatsoever to do with the current stream.
So the statement makes no sense coming or going. Is it just something misremembered from history books explaining why the river repeatedly flooded? or is it an accurate description of the present situation based on less than 200 years of deposition and modern earthworks and dredging? — LlywelynII 23:34, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Dubious

message: Chinese loess is the most friable and erodible soil on earth. Yes, Chinese agriculture and Mongolian pastoralism had greater-than-zero effect on the desire of the river to flood its banks, but not any meaningful or noteworthy one. The floods were coming regardless; the man-made part was only inattention to the needful levee and diking system. (Some massive modern projects have contributed meaningfully to erosion, but after an era when the river was controlled enough that flooding has been far less destructive than before.) — LlywelynII 23:39, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Undue focus on environmental sinfulness in lead

message: I've been editing the area around the Yellow River headwaters over on Openstreetmap, and noticed that the location of the source of the river is different than the one we give here in the infobox, and I'm wondering which community is right. While it's only about 65km difference as the crow flies, it's in a different valley, so that translates to a few hundred km of waterways. Following the above link you can see what I mean (local names are used on OSM, so the Yellow river shows up as "黄河", the other waterways in question are w/o names. It's actually a bit tricky to see what's going on, because the streams are not shown when you zoom out. The coordinates do make sense, in that they are within a few metres of a major stream, that is joined by other streams to become a little river, and later joins with another river of similar size that OSM has labelled as 黄河, this is the confluence in question. OSM has the Yellow river as the one coming from the east, wikipedia's coordinates correspond to the one from the south. Anyone have any info? Keithonearth (talk) 04:01, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the source for the coordinates of the river's source in the infobox? 

message: :Among the deadliest were the 1332–33 flood during the Yuan dynasty
..that we're linking that text to an article about a flood a decade later? 
Is our date wrong here? is that article's date wrong? or is the link just entirely mistaken? — LlywelynII 16:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Any particular reason...