Red River (Asia)

The Red River, also known as the Hong River (traditional Chinese: 紅河; simplified Chinese: 红河; pinyin: Hóng Hé; Vietnamese: Sông Hồng; Chữ Nôm: 瀧紅) and Sông Cái (lit. "Mother River"; 瀧丐) in Vietnamese, and the Yuan River (元江, Yuán Jiāng) in Chinese, is a 1,149-kilometer (714 mi)-long river that flows from Yunnan in Southwest China through northern Vietnam to the Gulf of Tonkin. According to C. Michael Hogan, the associated Red River Fault was instrumental in forming the entire South China Sea at least as early as 37 million years before present. The name red and southern position in China are associated in traditional cardinal directions.

For the delta, see Red River Delta. For the tributary of the Huai River in central China, see Hong River (Huai River).
"Hong He" and "Song Hong" redirect here. For other uses, see Hong He (disambiguation) and Song Hong (disambiguation).
Red River
Hong River
Red River in Yuanyang County/Gejiu City, Yunnan
Red River and its tributaries.
Location
CountryChina, Vietnam
ProvincesYunnan Province (China), Lào Cai province, Yên Bái province, Phú Thọ province, Hanoi, Vĩnh Phúc province, Hưng Yên province, Hà Nam province, Thái Bình province, Nam Định province
Physical characteristics
Source 
 • locationHengduan Mountains, Weishan, Dali, Yunnan, China
 • elevation1,776 m (5,827 ft)
2nd source 
 • locationTBD, Xiangyun, Dali, Yunnan, China
MouthBa Lạt
 • location
(boundary between Tiền Hải and Giao Thủy)
 • coordinates
20°14′43″N 106°35′20″E
 • elevation
0 m (0 ft)
Length1,149 km (714 mi)
Basin size143,600 km2 (55,400 sq mi)[1] 169,000 km2 (65,000 sq mi)[1]
Discharge 
 • locationRed River Delta, Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam
 • average4,300 m3/s (150,000 cu ft/s)[1]
 • minimum1,200 m3/s (42,000 cu ft/s)[1] 700 m3/s (25,000 cu ft/s)
 • maximum35,000 m3/s (1,200,000 cu ft/s)[1] 9,500 m3/s (340,000 cu ft/s)[2]
Discharge 
 • locationViệt Trì
 • average900 m3/s (32,000 cu ft/s)
Basin features
Tributaries 
 • leftNanxi, Lô
 • rightĐà
Red River
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese紅河
Simplified Chinese红河
Alternative Chinese name
Chinese元江
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabetSông Hồng
Sông Cái
Sông Thao
Nhị Hà, Nhĩ Hà
Hán-Nôm瀧紅
瀧丐
瀧洮
珥河
Hong River in fog, Hanoi, Vietnam.
The reddish-brown heavily silt-laden water gives the river its name. View from bridge in Hanoi, Vietnam
Sunset over Hong River, view from Long Bien Bridge, Hanoi, Vietnam

Geography

The Red River begins in China's Yunnan province in the mountains south of Dali. Main headstreams Leqiu River, Xi River and Juli River confluence at Nanjian where they form the Lishe River. The Lishe River meets with another headstream, the Yijie River at Hongtupo, Chuxiong Prefecture. It flows generally southeastward, passing through Yi and Dai ethnic minority areas before leaving China through Yunnan's Honghe Autonomous Prefecture. It enters Vietnam at Lào Cai province and forms a portion of the international border between China and Vietnam. The river, known as Thao River for this upper stretch, continues its southeasterly course through northwestern Vietnam before emerging from the mountains to reach the midlands. Its main tributaries, the Black River (Da River) and Lô River join in to form the very broad Hồng near the city of Việt Trì, Phú Thọ province.

Downstream from Việt Trì, the river and its main distributaries, the Đuống River, Kinh Thầy River, Bạch Đằng River and the Thái Bình river system spread out to form the Red River Delta. The Red River flows past the Vietnamese capital Hanoi before emptying into the Gulf of Tonkin. Its estuary is an important Ramsar site and forms the main part of the Xuân Thủy National Park.

The reddish-brown heavily silt-laden water gives the river its name. The Red River is notorious for its violent floods with its seasonally wide volume fluctuations. Intense seasonal floods are made worse by erosion, development, and pollution. The delta is a major agricultural area of Vietnam with vast area devoted to rice. The land is protected by an elaborate network of dikes and levees.

As a travel and transportation route
Boats on the Red River Wharf by painter Đỗ Đức Thuận in 1930

In the 19th century, the Red River was thought to be a lucrative trade route to China. The late 19th-century French explorers were able to travel up the Red River until Manhao in South Yunnan, and then overland toward Kunming.[3]

The Red River remained the main commercial travel route between the French Indochina and Yunnan until the opening of the Kunming–Haiphong Railway in 1910. Although French steamers would be able to go as far upstream as Lao Cai during the rainy season,[4] during the dry season (November to April) steamship would not go upstream of Yên Bái; thus, during that part of the year goods were moved by small vessels (junks).[5]

Thanks to the river, Haiphong was in the early 20th century the sea port most easily accessible from Kunming. Still, the travel time between Haiphong and Kunming was reckoned by the Western authorities at 28 days: it involved 16 days of travel by steamer and then a small boat up the Red River to Manhao (425 miles), and then 12 days overland (194 miles) to Kunming.[5]

Manhao was considered the head of navigation for the smallest vessels (wupan 五版); so Yunnan's products such as tin would be brought to Manhao by pack mules, where they would be loaded to boats to be sent downstream.[4] On the Manhao to Lao Cai section, where the current may be quite fast, especially during the freshet season, traveling upstream in an wupan was much more difficult than downstream. According to one report, one could descend from Manhao to Lao Cai in just 10 hours, while sailing in the reverse direction could take 10 days, and sometimes as much as one month.[4]

Dams

Several hydroelectric dams have been constructed on the Red River in Yunnan:[6]

Many more dams exist on the Red River's tributaries, both in Yunnan and in Vietnam.[6] One of the earliest of them is the Thác Bà Dam in Vietnam, constructed in 1972, which forms the Thác Bà Lake.[7]

Settlements

China (中國)

Vietnam (Việt Nam)
The Red River, view from Long Biên Bridge, Hanoi, Vietnam

See also

References
  1. Bank erosion in Mekong Delta and Red River (Report). March 2004 – via ResearchGate.
  2. "Red River | river, Asia | Britannica". www.britannica.com.
  3. Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, vol. 9–10, Geographical Society, 1912, pp. 18–20
  4. Little, Archibald John (1906), Across Yunnan & Tonking by Archibald Little: Part I. Between Two Capitals. Part II. Yunnanfu to the Coast, p. 26
  5. Whates, H. (1901), The Politician's Handbook, Vacher & Sons, p. 146
  6. Commissioned, Under Construction and Planned Dams in April 2016 Archived 2017-04-06 at the Wayback Machine (WLE Greater Mekong)
  7. Lu, Xi Xi; Oeurng, Chantha; Le, Thi Phuong Quynh; Thuy, Duong Thi (2015). "Sediment budget as affected by construction of a sequence of dams in the lower Red River, Viet Nam". Geomorphology. 248: 125–133. Bibcode:2015Geomo.248..125L. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.06.044.

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