River
Yalong River
1,323 km from source to mouth · China.
ChinaFlows into Jinsha River
In numbers
Length
1,323km
Average flow
2,000m³/s
Basin
150,000km²
Drop
3,116m
from 4,101 m to 985 m
Country
1
The journey
From source to mouth
1,323 km of river and 5 stops on the way: 0 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.
- 0 kmZa Quat 4,101 m
- 607 kmXianshui Rivertributary
- 897 kmLitang Rivertributary
- 1,099 kmYalong Liangshan Bridge
- 1,224 kmAnning Hetributary
- 1,227 kmTongzilin hydropower station
- 1,323 kmJinsha Riverat 985 m
Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.
Tributary of Yangtze in Sichuan province in southwestern China
At the mouth it carries 2,000 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 1.2 seconds. It drops from 4,101 m to 985 m, 2.4 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 150,000 km², about the size of BD. 3.1 million people live in it. Highest water: from August to September; lowest: from January to April. Dams and reservoirs hold back a large share of its water (13% of a year's flow).
Where to start
- PanzhihuaLargest city on its banks · 787,177 people
- Panzhihua Bao'anying Airport (PZI)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 10 km from the city
- On the water7 ferry piers, marinas, boat rentals and boat ramps along the river (OpenStreetMap)
- From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit
Yalong River, month by month
Highest water: from August to September
Lowest water: from January to April. Best months to visit: from May to September.
From about 270 m³/s in the lowest month to 4,200 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
Yalong River: the basin in numbers
128,185 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.
- 3.1millionpeople live in the basin
- 25/km²people per km²
- 3,799maverage altitude of the basin
- 761mmof rain a year (basin average)
- 3.8°Caverage air temperature
- 17%protected areas
- 0.2%covered by lakes
- 10%permafrost
- 6.9km³held in reservoirs
What covers the basin
- 32% Forest
- 3% Cropland
- 72% Pasture
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
Yalong River: what you find on the way
- 3Weirs
- 6Ferry piers
- 1Marinas
From OpenStreetMap, within 2.5 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.
Cross-checked with our atlases
Yalong 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.
1mountain at the sourcePeakyas
Mountains at the source (1)
Within 15 km of the source, by Peakyas
- Meiqinshe Yima13 km away
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
Yalong River in pictures
Tributaries
Where it flows, and what flows into it
It flows into
Jinsha RiverChina3,005 km4,500 m³/sTributaries (8)
Also: Anning He, Xianshui River, Litang River, Sancha River, Mamoke He, Jiulong He (Sichuan), Liqiu River, Ganyu River
In the same basin
China6,300 km31,900 m³/sHan RiverChina1,532 km2,200 m³/sHuai RiverChina1,110 km1,200 m³/sGan RiverChina758 km1,700 m³/sJialing RiverChina1,119 km2,100 m³/sWu RiverChina1,150 km1,800 m³/sXiang RiverChina801 km6,400 m³/sMin RiverChina711 km2,300 m³/sYuan RiverChina993 km2,000 m³/sDadu RiverChina642 km1,400 m³/sWhere these numbers come from
| Name, length, places | Wikidata (Q876857) · 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 | Peakyas — 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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