The Han River (simplified Chinese: 汉江; traditional Chinese: 漢江; pinyin: Hàn Jiāng) is a left tributary of the Yangtze River (Cháng Jiāng) with a length of 1532 km. Historically it was referred to as Hànshuǐ (simplified Chinese: 汉水; traditional Chinese: 漢水; pinyin: Hànshuǐ) and the name is still occasionally used today. The river lent its name to Hanzhong, which lent its name to the Han Dynasty.
The Han River rises in southwestern Shaanxi and flows east across the southern part of that province. To the north are the Qin Mountains, then the Wei River tributary of the Yellow River and the Ordos Loop region. To the south are the Daba Mountains which separate it from Sichuan and Chongqing. The main cities are Hanzhong in the west and Ankang in the east. It then enters Hubei. It crosses most of Hubei from the northwest to the southeast, falling into the Yangtze at the provincial capital Wuhan, a city of several million inhabitants. The merging rivers divide the city of Wuhan into three sections: Wuchang (on the south side of the Yangtze, across the river from the mouth of the Han River), Hankou (on the north side of the Yangtze and the Han), and Hanyang (between the Yangtze and the Han).
Danjiangkou Dam was constructed on the Han River in northern Hubei in 1958. It has been heightened since. The Danjiangkou Reservoir created thereby is now used as part of the South–North Water Transfer Project.
Famous quotes containing the words han and/or river:
“ech of yow, to shorte with oure weye,
In this viage shal telle tales tweye
To Caunterbury-ward, I mene it so,
And homward he shal tellen othere two,
Of aventures that whilom han bifalle.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)