Tao River () is a right tributary of China's

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...

. It starts in Xiqing Mountains () near the

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibe ...

–

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 ...

border, flows eastward across Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and then northward more or less along the border between

Dingxi Dingxi (), also known as Longyou () is a prefecture-level city in the southeast of Gansu province, People's Republic of China. As of the 2020 census, its population was 2,524,097 inhabitants, of which 422,383 lived in the built-up (or metro) area ...

Prefecture-level City in the east and Gannan and Linxia Prefectures in the west. It flows into the

(actually, the Liujiaxia Reservoir) near Liujiaxia Town (the county seat of Yongjing County), just upstream of Liujiaxia Dam.

Hydro power

A number of dams with hydroelectric power plants have been constructed on the Tao River. According to Google Maps, they include dams at the following locations (upstream to downstream): * —Gucheng Station, near Zhongzhai Town () in Min County * —Shashuniu Dam () * —the Lianlu Cascade I, near Xiacheng Township () * * * The Lianlu Cascade I station, with the generation capacity of 55 MW, has been jointly developed by Japan and China. Construction of the station's three 22MW units began in 2007 and was completed in 2010, the year the units began producing electricity.

References

Rivers of Gansu Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture Tributaries of the Yellow River {{China-river-stub