Yellow River

(noun)

Huang He in Chinese. A river of northern China which flows for 5,463 km (3,000 miles) to the Yellow Sea.

Related Terms

Examples of Yellow River in the following topics:

  • Introduction to the Shang Dynasty

    • The Shang Dynasty existed in the Yellow River Valley during the second millennium BCE.
    • It was located in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BCE.
    • This map shows the location of the Shang Dynasty in the Yellow River valley.

  • Society Under the Shang Dynasty

    • The Shang Dynasty was located in the Yellow River valley in China during the second millennium BCE.
    • It was located in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BCE.

  • Ceramics in Neolithic China

    • The Yangshao culture was a Neolithic culture that existed extensively along the central Yellow River in China.
    • The Longshan culture was a late Neolithic culture in China, centered in the central and lower Yellow River.
    • This type of thin-walled and polished black pottery has also been discovered in the Yangzi River valley and as far as the southeastern coast of modern China.

  • The Mythical Period

    • As in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus River valley, civilization in China developed around a great river.
    • The Yellow River and the Huai and Yangtze Rivers, created fertile land, ripe for experimentation with agriculture.
    • These phenomena took place in China about 1000 years later than in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus River valley.
    • The Five Emperors began with Huangdi, or the Yellow Emperor, whose reign is believed to be from 2698-2599 BCE.

  • The Eastern Han Period

    • A series of major floods on the Yellow River, however, displaced thousands of peasants, and caused massive unrest.
    • A series of rebellions, including the Yellow Turban and Five Pecks of Rice, began in 184 CE.

  • Rise of the Ming Dynasty

    • Alongside institutionalized ethnic discrimination against Han Chinese that stirred resentment and rebellion, other explanations for the Yuan's demise included overtaxing areas hard-hit by crop failure, inflation, and massive flooding of the Yellow River caused by abandonment of irrigation projects.
    • Consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dikes of the Yellow River.
    • Zhu was a born into a desperately poor tenant farmer family in Zhongli Village in the Huai River plain, which is in present-day Fengyang, Anhui Province.
    • When he was sixteen, the Huai River broke its banks and flooded the lands where his family lived.

  • River Valley Civilizations

    • The first civilizations formed in river valleys, and were characterized by a caste system and a strong government that controlled water access and resources.
    • The first civilizations formed on the banks of rivers.
    • The most notable examples are the Ancient Egyptians, who were based on the Nile, the Mesopotamians in the Fertile Crescent on the Tigris/Euphrates rivers, the Ancient Chinese on the Yellow River, and the Ancient India on the Indus.
    • Though each civilization was uniquely different, we can see common patterns amongst these first civilizations since they were all based around rivers.
    • The only hydraulic empire to exist in Africa was under the Ajuran State near the Jubba and Shebelle Rivers in the 15th century CE.

  • The Southern Song Era

    • Jin forces halted at the Yangtze River, but staged continual raids south of the river until a later boundary was fixed at the Huai River further north.
    • Though weakened and pushed south beyond the Huai River, the Southern Song found new ways to bolster its strong economy and defend itself against the Jin dynasty.
    • To protect and support the multitude of ships sailing for maritime interests into the waters of the East China Sea and Yellow Sea (to Korea and Japan), Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea, it was necessary to establish an official standing navy.
    • From 1268 to 1273, Kublai blockaded the Yangtze River with his navy and besieged Xiangyang, the last obstacle in his way to invading the rich Yangtze River basin.
    • In the Battle of Yamen on the Pearl River Delta in 1279, the Yuan army, led by General Zhang Hongfan, finally crushed the Song resistance.

  • Streams and Rivers

  • Archaic Hunters and Gatherers

    • Middens developed along rivers, but there is limited evidence of Archaic peoples along coastlines prior to 3000 BCE.
    • These shell rings are numerous in South Carolina and Georgia but can also be found scattered around the Florida peninsula and along the Gulf of Mexico as far west as the Pearl River.
    • Simple map of subsistence methods in the Americas at 1000 BCE.Key:[Yellow] Mesolithic; hunter-gatherers [Green] Neolithic; simple farming societies[Orange] Tribal chiefdoms or civilizations; complex farming societies