The Batang River (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

: , p ''Batánghé'') or Zha Chu (

: , p ''Zháqū''; Standard Tibetan: Za Qu), whose two sources are Za Qu ( w ''rdza Chu'', z ''Za Qu'') and Bai Qu ( Tibetan: , w ''Dpal Chu'', z ''Bä Qu''), is an long river in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, south-eastern

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

, in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The river begins in the highlands of central

Yushu County Yushu (Yüxü) is a county-level city of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Southern Qinghai Province, China. It comprises a surface area of . In 2010, the overall city's population was 120,447 and 56,802 live within the city core. There are ...

and flows easterly through the

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

of Batang () and

Gyêgu Gyêgu Subdistrict, formerly a part of the Gyêgu town is a township-level division in Yushu, Yushu TAP, Qinghai, China. The name Gyêgu is still a common name for the Yushu city proper, which include Gyêgu subdistrict and three other subdist ...

before meeting the

Tongtian River The Zhi Qu (Tibetan) or Tongtian River () is a long river in Qinghai Province, northwest China. It begins at the confluence of Tuotuo River and Dangqu River, before flowing southeast and meeting the Jinsha River near the border of Qinghai and Sichu ...

at the border of Yushu County with Chindu County. The Tongtian is the main stem of the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

, and its confluence with the Batang is traditionally considered to mark the beginning of the Jinsha section of the Yangtze. The Batang River's watershed covers and its average flow is 29 m³ per second.

References

Rivers of Qinghai {{China-river-stub