Huang He (Yellow River)

China's 'Mother River' and 'Sorrow,' colored by loess silt/Water

The Yellow River (Huang He) is the second-longest river in China at approximately 5,464 kilometers, flowing from the Tibetan Plateau to the Bohai Sea. It gets its name from the enormous quantity of fine loess silt it carries, giving the water a distinctive muddy yellow color. The river is often called both 'China's Mother River' for nurturing early Chinese civilization along its banks and 'China's Sorrow' for its catastrophic floods, which have killed millions throughout history. The 1931 flood alone may have killed up to 4 million people. Its sediment load of 1.6 billion tonnes per year makes it the muddiest major river on Earth.