Lake Khanka (labeled as LAKE HANKA) (1955)Map including Lake Khanka
On theDelisle map of 1706, the lake is namedHimgon and from it flows a river labelled with the namesUsurou andOusuri.
On the 1739 map ofJohann Matthias Hase, the lake is named LakeHinka and the river flowing from it called by the namesOusoury andSchur.
On the 1752 map ofd'Anville, the lake is namedHink, and the river from it is calledSonghachan, which flows, in turn, into the riverUsuri.
On an 18th-century map showing the "Irkutsk governorate with the adjacent islands and the western coast of America", the river issuing fromLake Hinka is named as theUsuri.
On the 1860 map attached to theConvention of Peking, two lakes are shown: the largerOz. Khankai (Russian: "Lake Khankai"), withKhankai glossed as signifying "quiet", (but given without a Manchu transliteration), and the smallerOz. Dobiku (Russian: "Lake Dobiku") - given with a Manchu transliteration ofDobiku. From the big lake is shown flowing a river, labelled with the Russian namesUzhu andSungachan, with the second of these names being glossed with a Manchu transliteration.
On the 1861 map made by 'M. Popov' (= rear-admiralAndrei Alexandrovich Popov?), the larger lake is given the nameKengka, while the smaller is calledAi'-Kengka - to which name is added (in brackets) the further nameSiauhu (which can be understood as a transcription of the ChineseXiaohu, that is, "Small Lake").
On the 1864 map by A.F. Budishchev, a captain in theCorps of Foresters, the lake is named asKhinkai (Singkai).
On the ethnographic map ofShrenk the abbreviated Russian namesOz. Khanka andOz. Mal. Khanka ("Lake Khanka" and "Little / Lesser Lake Khanka") are used.[4]
Explorer, traveler, naturalist and writerVladimir Arsenyev (1872–1930) wrote, concerning the name of the lake: "In the Liao Dynasty, Khanka Lake was calledBeitsin-hai, but it is now known asKhanka,Khinkai andSinkai-hu, meaning "Lake of Prosperity". It must be assumed that the nameKhanka originated from another word, namelykhanhai, meaning "hollow" - a name by which the Chinese call every low place...Subsequently, the Russians must have changed this word to its current form ofKhanka."
Lake Khanka is an ancient lake, rich in fish and bird species - a richness reflected in the ancient nameKhankai-Omo - "Sea of bird feathers". Likewise, in the Middle Ages, the fish fauna of Lake Khanka furnished the tables of both Chinese andJurchen emperors with an abundance of delicacies.
In 1868,Nikolay Przhevalsky visited Lake Khanka, leaving for posterity his descriptions of the flora and fauna of the lake and its surroundings. It was thirty-four years later, in 1902, that the explorerVladimir Arsenyev made his first expedition to the area.
InShen Kuo'sDream Pool Essays, a passage called "Strange Happenings" contains a peculiar account of anunidentified flying object. Shen wrote that, during the reign ofEmperor Renzong (1022–1063), an object as bright as a pearl occasionally hovered over the city ofYangzhou at night, but described first by local inhabitants of easternAnhui and then inJiangsu.[5] Shen wrote that a man nearXingkai Lake observed this curious object; allegedly it:
...opened its door and a flood of intense light like sunbeams darted out of it, then the outer shell opened up, appearing as large as a bed with a big pearl the size of a fist illuminating the interior in silvery white. The intense silver-white light, shot from the interior, was too strong for human eyes to behold; it cast shadows of every tree within a radius of ten miles. The spectacle was like the rising Sun, lighting up the distant sky and woods in red. Then all of a sudden, the object took off at a tremendous speed and descended upon the lake like the Sun setting.[6]
Shen went on to say that Yibo, a poet ofGaoyou, wrote a poem about this "pearl" after witnessing it. Shen wrote that since the "pearl" often made an appearance around Fanliang in Yangzhou, the people there erected a "Pearl Pavilion" on a wayside, where people came by boat in hopes to see the mysterious flying object.[7]
Lake Khanka, the largest lake inPrimorsky Krai, is located in the centre of the Khankan lowland on the border with the People's Republic of China inHeilongjiang Province. The northern part of the lake is in Chinese territory. The lake is pear-shaped, with an extension in its northern part. The surface area of the water is highly variable, depending on climate conditions. The maximum extension reaches 5,010 km2 (1,930 sq mi), the minimum extension is 3,940 km2 (1,520 sq mi). The length of the lake is about 90 km (56 mi), the maximum width is 67 km (42 mi). There are 24 rivers flowing into Lake Khanka, with only one outflow:Songacha River, which connects it with theUssuri, and that in turn with theAmur River system.[8]
Lake Khanka is a shallow body of water, with an average depth of 4.5 metres (15 ft) and a prevailing depth of 1–3 metres (3.3–9.8 ft); the greatest depth is 10.6 m (35 ft). Its average volume is 18.3 km3 (4.4 cu mi), though it can fill up to 22.6 km3 (5.4 cu mi). The water in the lake is cloudy, which is explained by frequent winds and, as a result, strong mixing. On average, the water inflow is about 1.94 km3 (0.47 cu mi) per year, and the outflow about 1.85 km3 (0.44 cu mi).[9]
On the northern (Chinese) shore liesLake Small Khanka (Chinese:小兴凯湖;pinyin:Xiaoxingkai Hu;Russian: о́зеро Малая Ха́нка,ozero Malaya Khanka), separated from Lake Khanka proper by a narrow sandy spit.
Khanka Lake freezes in the second half of November and thaws in April.
The fauna and flora of Lake Khanka are rich in species. In 1971, theRamsar Convention gave the lake the status of awetland of international importance. In 1990, theKhanka Nature Reserve was organized in part of the then-Soviet basin of Lake Khanka. In April 1996, an agreement was signed between the Governments of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China on the establishment of an international Russian-Chinese nature reserve around the lake, from the Khankai Reserve in Russia and the Chinese Singkai-Hu Reserve.
The wetlands of the Lake Khanka basin (Водно-болотные угодья озера Ханка,Vodno-bolotnye ugod'ya ozera Khanka) represent a unique natural complex. The lowland of the Prihanka and, in fact, the shores of the lake represent a fairly swampy terrain. So-called melt-plant communities, formed by various species of sedge and grass, form a solid turf covering the water mirror for many tens of square kilometers. Diverse ecosystems are represented, such as meadows (from marshy to steppe), meadow forest, forest-steppe and steppe plant communities. In the lake itself there are many species of fish and aquatic invertebrates, many of which are endemic. In the lake there live 52 species of fish, among them such ascarp,perch,silver carp,catfish, andsnakehead. A variety of birds nest and stop on the lake or its banks.
The lake'sdrainage basin covers an area of 16,890 km2 (6,520 sq mi), of which 97% is in Russian territory. It is fed by 23 rivers (8 in China and 15 in Russia), but the only outflow of the lake is theSongacha River.[8]
The maximum monthly meantemperature is 20 °C (68 °F) in July, while the minimum monthly mean temperature is −21 °C (−6 °F) in January.Rainfall mainly occurs in summer, with average annual precipitation of 500–650 mm annually.[10]
^abcdefg"Experience and Lessons Learned Brief for Lake Xingkai/Khanka"(PDF).Jin Xiangcan, Jiang Xia, Status and Prospects of the Russian-Chinese Cooperation in Environment Conservation and Water Management. Materials of the international conference, Moscow, MNR of Russia, 2007: 84. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on May 30, 2009.
^Dong (2000), 69. (Professor Zhang Longqiao of the Chinese Department ofPeking Teachers' College, who popularized this account in Beijing'sGuang Ming Daily on February 18, 1979, in an article called "Could It Be That A Visitor From Outer Space Visited China Long Ago?", states is "a clue that a flying craft from some other planet once landed somewhere nearYangzhou in China.")
