Hong River in fog, Hanoi, Vietnam.The reddish-brown heavily silt-laden water gives the river its name. View from bridge in Hanoi, VietnamSunset over Hong River, view from Long Bien Bridge, Hanoi, Vietnam
TheRed River or theHong River (traditional Chinese:紅河;simplified Chinese:红河;pinyin:Hóng Hé;Vietnamese:Sông Hồng;Chữ Nôm: 瀧紅), also known as theSông Cái (lit. "Main River";Chữ Nôm: 瀧丐) in Vietnamese[3][4] and theYuan River (元江,Yuán Jiāng) in Chinese, is a 1,149-kilometer (714 mi)-long river that flows fromYunnan inSouthwest China through northernVietnam to theGulf of Tonkin. According to C. Michael Hogan, the associatedRed River Fault was instrumental in forming the entireSouth China Sea at least as early as 37 million years before present. The name red and southern position in China are associated in traditionalcardinal directions. The river is relatively shallow, and carries a lot of reddishsilt along its way, appearing red brown in colour.
The upper stretches of the Red River, known as the Yuan River, inYuanjiang County, Yunnan
The Red River begins inChina'sYunnan province in the mountains south ofDali. Main headstreamsLeqiu River,Xi River and JuliRiver confluence atNanjian where they form theLishe River. The Lishe River meets with another headstream, theYijie River atHongtupo,Chuxiong Prefecture. The river is commonly known as the Yuan (元江) until it reachesHonghe Prefecture. It flows generally southeastward, passing throughYi andDai ethnic minority areas before leaving China through Yunnan'sHonghe Autonomous Prefecture. It enters Vietnam atLào Cai province and forms a portion of the international border between China and Vietnam. The river, known as Thao River for this upper stretch, continues its southeasterly course through northwestern Vietnam before emerging from the mountains to reach the midlands.[5] Its main tributaries, theBlack River (Da River) andLô River join in to form the very broad Hồng near the city ofViệt Trì,Phú Thọ province.
The reddish-brown heavily silt-laden water gives the river its name. The Red River is notorious for its violent floods with its seasonally wide volume fluctuations. Intense seasonal floods are made worse by erosion, development, and pollution. The delta is a major agricultural area of Vietnam with vast area devoted to rice. The land is protected by an elaborate network of dikes andlevees.[citation needed]
Boats on the Red River Wharf by painter Đỗ Đức Thuận in 1930
In the 19th century, the Red River was thought to be a lucrative trade route to China. The late 19th-century French explorers were able to travel up the Red River untilManhao in SouthYunnan, and then overland towardKunming.[6]
The Red River remained the main commercial travel route between theFrench Indochina and Yunnan until the opening of theKunming–Haiphong Railway in 1910. Although French steamers would be able to go as far upstream asLao Cai during the rainy season,[7] during the dry season (November to April) steamship would not go upstream ofYên Bái; thus, during that part of the year goods were moved by small vessels (junks).[8]
Thanks to the river,Haiphong was in the early 20th century the sea port most easily accessible from Kunming. Still, the travel time between Haiphong and Kunming was reckoned by the Western authorities at 28 days: it involved 16 days of travel by steamer and then a small boat up the Red River to Manhao (425 miles), and then 12 days overland (194 miles) to Kunming.[8]
Manhao was considered the head of navigation for the smallest vessels (wupan 五版); so Yunnan's products such astin would be brought to Manhao by pack mules, where they would be loaded to boats to be sent downstream.[7] On the Manhao toLao Cai section, where the current may be quite fast, especially during thefreshet season, traveling upstream in anwupan was much more difficult than downstream. According to one report, one could descend from Manhao to Lao Cai in just 10 hours, while sailing in the reverse direction could take 10 days, and sometimes as much as one month.[7]
Many more dams exist on the Red River's tributaries, both in Yunnan and in Vietnam.[9] One of the earliest of them is theThác Bà Dam in Vietnam, constructed in 1972, which forms theThác Bà Lake.[10]
^Lu, Xi Xi; Oeurng, Chantha; Le, Thi Phuong Quynh; Thuy, Duong Thi (2015). "Sediment budget as affected by construction of a sequence of dams in the lower Red River, Viet Nam".Geomorphology.248:125–133.Bibcode:2015Geomo.248..125L.doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.06.044.
