The Datong River (), known as the Julak Chu ( Tibetan: འཇུ་ལག་ཆུ་) in

Amdo Tibetan Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two varieties, the farmer dialects and the nomad dialects. Amdo is one of the three branches of tradition ...

, is a river of

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

in the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

basin. It has a total length of , and a basin area of . It has an average annual flow of 90.5 cubic meters per second. It was previously spelled Tatung in English. The river forms in Tianjun County, part of Qinghai Province's

Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture ( zh, c=海西蒙古族藏族自治州; ; ), locally also known as Qaidam Prefecture (; ; zh, s=柴达木), is an autonomous prefecture occupying much of the northern half of (as well as part of ...

. It then flows easterly separating the

Qilian Mountains The Qilian Mountains (), together with the Altyn-Tagh sometimes known as the Nan Shan, as it is to the south of the Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunlun Mountains, forming the border between Qinghai and the Gansu provinces of n ...

from the Daban Mountains. The main centre of population along its length here is Menyuan. The Datong River meets the Huangshui River at Qinghai's border with

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

. While it is a tributary of the Huangshui in name, the Datong River is actually the main stem of the Huangshui River system and is considerably longer than the Huangshui.

References

Rivers of China {{China-river-stub