Liao River Information
The Liao He (simplified Chinese: 辽河; traditional Chinese: 遼河; pinyin: Liáo hé, Liao River) is the principal river in southern Manchuria (1,345 km). The province of Liaoning and the Liaodong Peninsula derive their name from the river.
The Liao He originates as two stems in the west: the Laoha He in southeastern Inner Mongolia, the Xinkai He (dry in its upper reaches except after thunderstorms) further north, and the Hulin He (which almost never reaches the main stem of the river) in the extreme northwest of Liaoning. The eastern stem of the river is known as the Dongliao He and rises in low mountains in central Liaoning. The two stems of the river meet near the junction of Liaoning, Jilin and Inner Mongolia and flow across a vast plain to the Bohai Gulf. Two major tributaries of the river, the Hun He ("muddy river") and the Taizi He, both of which flow down from the Qianshan range, used to flow into the Liao River shortly before it flowed into the sea, but the Atlas of China (Beijing, Sinomaps Press, 2006) shows that while the two tributaries continue to follow their traditional route and flow into the sea at what this atlas still identifies as the "Liao He Kou", the mouth of the Liao River, virtually all of the water of the Liao He has been diverted into the ShuangTaizi He, which flows into Bohai Gulf about 35 kilometers to the northwest. Google Earth also shows this new pattern.
Several major cities are located on the Hun He, including Shenyang, the provincial capital, Fushun, farther upstream, and Yingkou at the mouth. Anshan is located on the southeastern edge of the basin.
The Liao He drains an area of over 232,000 square kilometres, but its mean discharge is quite small at only about 500 cubic metres per second - about one-twentieth that of the Pearl River.
Like the Huang He, the Liao He has an exceedingly high sediment load because many parts of it flow through powdery loess.
See also
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Categories: Rivers of China | Geography of Liaoning
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