River
Xiang River
801 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Yangtze River
In numbers
Length
801km
Average flow
6,400m³/s
Basin
95,000km²
Drop
233m
from 252 m to 19 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
801 km of river and 13 stops on the way: 6 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmSourceat 252 m
- 84 kmQiancheng9,260 people
- 113 kmHongjiang476,000 people
- 139 kmAnjiang55,421 people
- 429 kmWuqiangxi Reservoir114 km²
- 556 kmChangde1,457,419 people
- 601 kmWeidi Hu2.6 km²
- 637 kmQionghu66,145 people
- 672 kmWanzi Hu82 km²
- 683 kmSouth Dongting Lake59 km²
- 759 kmDongting Lake144 km²
- 765 kmYueyang991,465 people
- 771 kmDongting Lake Bridge (rail)
- 774 kmBajiao Hu9.8 km²
- 801 kmYangtze Riverat 19 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
River in Hunan, China feeding Dongting Lake
At the mouth it carries 6,374 m³/s on average: 2.5 Olympic pools every second. It drops from 252 m to 19 m, 0.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 95,000 km², about the size of HU. 74.5 million people live in it. Highest water: from June to July; lowest: February. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (14% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- ChangdeLargest city on its banks · 1,457,419 people
- Changde Taohuayuan Airport (CGD)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 14 km from the city
- On the water32 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From September to NovemberThe best months to visit
Xiang River, month by month
Highest water: from June to July
Lowest water: February. Best months to visit: from September to November.
From about 2,900 m³/s in the lowest month to 12,400 m³/s in the highest. An estimate: the monthly flow is modelled from the lowest and highest months of WaterGAP (RiverATLAS, 1971–2000) and the rain and snow along the river (WorldClim). Dams change the real rhythm. The chip is the average air temperature; below it, the month's rain.
Plan the trip
Plan the trip: boat trips, a bed by the river, a car
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The basin
Xiang River: the basin in numbers
260,551 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 74.5millionpeople live in the basin
- 293/km²people per km²
- 425maverage altitude of the basin
- 1,414mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 16.5°Caverage air temperature
- 9%protected areas
- 0.8%covered by lakes
- 28km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 56% Forest
- 21% Cropland
- 14% Pasture
- 9% Towns and cities
RiverATLAS (HydroATLAS v1.0, CC BY 4.0): land cover, people, protected areas, glaciers and dams over the whole basin upstream of the mouth.
Along the river
Xiang River: what you find on the way
- 4LocksYuan River and 3 more
- 1Boat ramps
- 31Ferry piers
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.6 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Xiang River in our other atlases
What our sister atlases know about the waterfalls on this river, the lakes it flows through, the beaches at its mouth, the mountains where it rises and the islands off its mouth.
6lakes on its wayLakeyas
Lakes and reservoirs (6)
Lakes it flows through, by Lakeyas
- Wuqiangxi Reservoirkm 444114km²
- Weidi Hukm 6212.6km²
- Wanzi Hukm 69582km²
- South Dongting Lakekm 70759km²
- Dongting Lakekm 785 · 31 m deep144km²
- Bajiao Hukm 8019.8km²
Lakeyas is coming soonOpen Lakeyas ↗
From space
The source and the mouth, seen from orbit
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. The glowing line is the river as drawn by RiverATLAS.
Photos
Xiang River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Yangtze RiverChina6,300 km31,900 m³/sTributaries (12)
Also: Xiao River, Wei River, Mi River, Laodao River, Liuyang River, Qi River, Lei River, Lian River, Zheng River, Juan River, Lushui River, Chongling River
In the same basin
China1,532 km2,200 m³/sHuai RiverChina1,110 km1,200 m³/sYalong RiverChina1,323 km2,000 m³/sGan RiverChina758 km1,700 m³/sJialing RiverChina1,119 km2,100 m³/sWu RiverChina1,150 km1,800 m³/sMin RiverChina711 km2,300 m³/sYuan RiverChina993 km2,000 m³/sDadu RiverChina642 km1,400 m³/sJinsha RiverChina3,005 km4,500 m³/sWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q831884) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Course, profile, basin | RiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed along the river network from the point given by Wikidata |
| Flow | WaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Climate along the river | WorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Towns, bridges, dams | Wikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0 |
| Along the river | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Our other atlases | Lakeyas — Wikidata · CC0; © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0; HydroLAKES · CC BY 4.0; NOAA OISST |
Every source and licence is on the data sources page.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
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