The Songhua or Sunghwa River (also Haixi or Xingal, russian: Сунгари ''Sungari'') is one of the primary

rivers of China This incomplete list of rivers that flow through China is organized according to the body of water into which each river empties, beginning with the Sea of Okhotsk in the northeast, moving clockwise on a map and ending with the Arctic Ocean. ...

, and the longest

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the

Amur The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China (Inner Manchuria). The Amur proper is long ...

. It flows about from the Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea border through China's northeastern

Jilin Jilin (; Postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three Provinces of China, provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea (Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, R ...

and

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () Postal romanization, formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a Provinces of China, province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is th ...

provinces. The river drains of land, and has an annual discharge of to . The extreme flatness of the Northeast China Plain has caused the river to

meander A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex ban ...

over time, filling the wide plain with oxbow lakes, as remnants of the previous paths of the river.

Geography

The Songhua rises south of

Heaven Lake Heaven Lake ( Korean: , ''Ch'ŏnji'' or ''Cheonji''; zh, 天池, ''Tiānchí''; Manchu: ''Tamun omo'' or ''Tamun juce'') is a crater lake on the border between China and North Korea. It lies within a caldera atop the volcanic Paektu Moun ...

, near the

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

border. From there it flows north, to be interrupted by the Baishan, Hongshi and Fengman hydroelectric dams. The Fengman Dam forms a lake that stretches for . Below the dam, the Second Songhua flows north through

, then northwest until it is joined by its largest tributary, the

Nen River The Nen River or Nenjiang (), or Nonni () is a river in Northeast China. The Nen River flows through the northern part of Heilongjiang Province and the northeastern section of Inner Mongolia, some parts of the river forming the border between ...

, near Da'an, to create the Songhua proper. The Songhua turns east through Harbin, and after the city, it is joined from the south by the

Ashi River The Ashi River is a right tributary of the Songhua in eastern Manchuria,. in Harbin's Acheng District in the People's Republic of China. Name The river has borne the name "Ashi" since the Qing (17th–20th century). Before that, it was known as t ...

, and then by the Hulan River from the north. A new dam was constructed in 2007 near

Bayan Bayan may refer to: Eduational Institutions * Bayan Islamic Graduate School, Chicago, IL Places *Bayan-Aul, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan *Bayan Mountain, an ancient mountain name for part of Tarbagatai Mountains at Kazakhstan in Qing Dynasty period * ...

(50 km northeast of Harbin), creating the Dadingshan Reservoir, which is named after the scenic area on the south bank (). The river flows onward through Jiamusi and south of the Lesser Xing'an Range, to eventually join the Amur at

Tongjiang, Heilongjiang Tongjiang () is a city of 160,000 in eastern Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, located at the confluence and on the right banks of the Songhua and Amur Rivers, the latter which marks the border with Russia. Administratively, it i ...

. The river freezes from late November until March. It has its highest flows when the mountain snow melts during the spring thaw. The river is navigable up to Harbin by medium-sized ships. Smaller craft can navigate the Songhua up to

and the Nen River up to Qiqihar. Cities along the river include: *

* Harbin * Jiamusi

History

In November 2005, the river was contaminated with benzene, leading to a shutdown of Harbin's water supply. The spill stretched and eventually reached the Amur (Heilong) River on the China–Russia border. On July 28, 2010, several thousand barrels from two chemical plants in China's Jilin City were washed away by floods. Some of them contained of explosive material like trimethylsilyl chloride and hexamethyldisiloxane.Defence lines were opened in attempt to intercept the barrels with chemicals
RIA Novosti, 30.07.2010 In 2016, the part near the city of Jilin was affected by a minor flood.

References

External links

{{Authority control Rivers of Heilongjiang Rivers of Jilin Harbin Jilin City Geography of Yanbian

Geography

History

See also

References

External links