Formation
Poyang Lake has also been called Pengli Marsh (彭蠡澤) historically, but they are not the same. Before the Han Dynasty, the Yangtze followed a more northerly course through what is now Lake Longgan (龍感湖) whilst Pengli Marsh formed the lower reaches of the Gan River. The area that is now Poyang Lake was a plain along the Gan River. Around 400 AD, the Yangtze River switched to a more southerly course, causing the Gan River to back up and form Lake Poyang. The backing up of the Gan River drowned Poyang County and Haihun County, forcing a mass migration to Wucheng Township in what is now Yongxiu County. Wucheng thus became one of the great ancient townships of Jiangxi Province. This migration gave birth to the phrase, "Drowning Haihun County gives rise to Wucheng Township"「淹了海昏縣，出了吳城鎮」.
Lake Poyang reached its greatest size during the Tang Dynasty, when its area reached 6000 km².
Read more about this topic: Poyang Lake
Famous quotes containing the word formation:
“That for which Paul lived and died so gloriously; that for which Jesus gave himself to be crucified; the end that animated the thousand martyrs and heroes who have followed his steps, was to redeem us from a formal religion, and teach us to seek our well-being in the formation of the soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)