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102-458: The concept of a passage over the Yangtze was developed in 1998. It was not until December 2007 when the construction of the bridge began. It would become the first 1,000-meter-span and 3-tower-continuous-span suspension bridge. The idea of multiple towers and the pylon suspension lines to connect them was to decrease the impact that river flow can have on the structure. Being the first of its kind,

204-561: A "dehumidification system". This system involves humidity and temperature sensors so maintenance groups can have "real-time visibility of the condition of critical areas and can conduct analysis based on historical data to ensure science-based decision-making in the maintenance of the bridge’s main cables". Yangtze Yangtze or Yangzi ( English: / ˈ j æ ŋ t s i / or / ˈ j ɑː ŋ t s i / simplified Chinese : 长江 ; traditional Chinese : 長江 ; pinyin : Cháng Jiāng ; lit. 'long river')

306-845: A 50-foot granite pyramidal obelisk was erected in Xintan, on the site of Captain Plant's home, in a Chinese community of pilots and junk owners. One face of the monument is inscribed in Chinese and another in English. Though recently relocated to higher ground ahead of the Three Gorges Dam, the monument still stands overlooking the Upper Yangtze River near Yichang, a rare collective tribute to a westerner in China. Standard Oil ran

408-556: A cave environment limits an organism's ability to disperse, since caves are often not connected to each other. One hypothesis for how closely related troglobite species could become isolated from one another in different caves is that their common ancestor may have been less restricted to cave habitats. When climate conditions became unfavorable, the ancestral species was extirpated from the surface, but some populations survived in caves, and diverged into different species due to lack of gene flow between them. Isolated islands commonly develop

510-455: A defined geographical area. Other terms that sometimes are used interchangeably, but less often, include autochthonal, autochthonic, and indigenous; however, these terms do not reflect the status of a species that specifically belongs only to a determined place. The word endemic is from Neo-Latin endēmicus , from Greek ἔνδημος, éndēmos , "native". Endēmos is formed of en meaning "in", and dēmos meaning "the people". The word entered

612-478: A euendemic the vicariance was geologic in nature, such as the movement of tectonic plates, but in a cryptoendemic the disjunct distribution was due to the extinction of the intervening populations. There is yet another possible situation that can cause a disjunct distribution, where a species is able to colonize new territories by crossing over areas of unsuitable habitat, such as plants colonizing an island – this situation they dismiss as extremely rare and do not devise

714-402: A holoendemic is a cosmopolitan species. Stenoendemics, also known as local endemics, have a reduced distribution and are synonymous with the word 'endemics' in the traditional sense, whereas euryendemics have a larger distribution -both these have distributions that are more or less continuous. A rhoendemic has a disjunct distribution . Where this disjunct distribution is caused by vicariance, in

816-745: A large fleet of warships appeared on the China coast, and with the first cannonball fired at a British ship, the Royal Saxon , the British started the first of the Opium Wars . Royal Navy warships destroyed numerous shore batteries and Chinese warships, laying waste to several coastal forts along the way. Eventually, they pushed their way up north close enough to threaten the Imperial Palace in Beijing itself. The China Navigation Company

918-452: A large range but be rare throughout this range. The evolutionary history of a species can lead to endemism in multiple ways. Allopatric speciation , or geographic speciation, is when two populations of a species become geographically separated from each other and as a result develop into different species. In isolated areas where there is little possibility for organisms to disperse to new places, or to receive new gene flow from outside,

1020-437: A limited range. Paleoendemism is more or less synonymous with the concept of a ' relict species ': a population or taxon of organisms that were more widespread or more diverse in the past. A 'relictual population' is a population that currently occurs in a restricted area, but whose original range was far wider during a previous geologic epoch . Similarly, a 'relictual taxon' is a taxon (e.g. species or other lineage) that

1122-513: A much larger area, but died out in most of their range, are called paleoendemic , in contrast to neoendemic species, which are new species that have not dispersed beyond their range. The ginkgo tree, Ginkgo biloba , is one example of a paleoendemic species. In many cases biological factors, such as low rates of dispersal or returning to the spawning area ( philopatry ), can cause a particular group of organisms to have high speciation rates and thus many endemic species. For example, cichlids in

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1224-522: A name for. Traditionally, none of Myers and de Grave's categories would be considered endemics except stenoendemics. Some environments are particularly conducive to the development of endemic species, either because they allow the persistence of relict taxa that were extirpated elsewhere, or because they provide mechanisms for isolation and opportunities to fill new niches. Serpentine soils act as ' edaphic islands' of low fertility and these soils lead to high rates of endemism. These soils are found in

1326-465: A number of endemics. Many species and other higher taxonomic groups exist in very small terrestrial or aquatic islands, which restrict their distribution. The Devil's Hole pupfish, Cyprinodon diabolis , has its whole native population restricted to a spring that is 20 x 3 meters, in Nevada 's Mojave Desert . This 'aquatic island' is connected to an underground basin; however, the population present in

1428-529: A species from being endemic. In theory, the term "endemic" could be applied on any scale; for example, the cougar is endemic to the Americas, and all known life is endemic to Earth. However, endemism is normally used only when a species has a relatively small or restricted range. This usage of "endemic" contrasts with "cosmopolitan." Endemics are not necessarily rare; some might be common where they occur. Likewise, not all rare species are endemics; some may have

1530-475: A swimming craze through party propaganda. In 2002, Danish adventurer and sailor Troels Kløvedal sailed up the Yangtze, from Shanghai to past the Three Gorges Dam, in the collectively owned "Nordkaperen" sailing ship . Kløvedal had spent 12 years preparing and gathering the required permissions, and with a crew of Danes, his family members, a Chinese interpreter and several local maritime pilots , he became

1632-504: A very restrictive range, due to the unique environmental characteristics. The Kula Volcano , one of the fourteen volcanoes in Turkey , is home to 13 endemic species of plants. Endemics might more easily become endangered or extinct because they are already restricted in distribution. This puts endemic plants and animals at greater risk than widespread species during the rapid climate change of this century. Some scientists claim that

1734-625: A wide variety of evolutionary histories, so researchers often use more specialized terms that categorize endemic species based upon how they came to be endemic to an area. Different categorizations of endemism also capture the uniqueness and irreplaceability of biodiversity hotspots differently and impact how those hotspots are defined, affecting how resources for conservation are allocated. The first subcategories were first introduced by Claude P. E. Favager and Juliette Contandriopoulis in 1961: schizoendemics, apoendemics and patroendemics. Using this work, Ledyard Stebbins and Jack Major then introduced

1836-437: A wider distributed taxon that has become reproductively isolated without becoming (potentially) genetically isolated – a schizoendemic has the same chromosome count as the parent taxon it evolved from. An apoendemic is a polyploid of the parent taxon (or taxa in the case of allopolyploids ), whereas a patroendemic has a lower, diploid chromosome count than the related, more widely distributed polyploid taxon. Mikio Ono coined

1938-486: Is 6,821 m (22,379 ft), including a three-tower suspension bridge with a pair of 1,080 m (3,540 ft) suspension spans, and 4,661 m (15,292 ft) of connecting approaches. The south bridge is 2,905 m (9,531 ft) with box-girder spans of 85+125x3+85 = 545 m (1,788 ft) and 85+125x2+85=420 m (1,380 ft). The north bank has 8 km (5.0 mi) of connecting highway. Yangzhong Island has 2.94 km (1.83 mi) of highway and

2040-522: Is found at 33°25′44″N 91°10′57″E  /  33.42889°N 91.18250°E  / 33.42889; 91.18250 and while not the furthest source of the Yangtze, it is the highest source at 5,342 m (17,526 ft) above sea level. The true source of the Yangtze, hydrologically the longest river distance from the sea, is at Jari Hill at the head of the Dam Qu tributary, approximately 325 km (202 mi) southeast of Geladandong. This source

2142-569: Is from the Sanskrit root gáṅgā . By the Han dynasty , Jiāng had come to mean any river in Chinese, and this river was distinguished as the "Great River" 大江 ( Dàjiāng ). The epithet 長 ( simplified version 长 ), meaning "long", was first formally applied to the river during the Six Dynasties period. Various sections of the Yangtze have local names. From Yibin to Yichang ,

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2244-434: Is only possible where 1.) the taxonomy of the species in question is not in dispute; 2.) the species distribution is accurately known; and 3.) the species have relatively small distributional ranges. In a 2000 article, Myers et al . used the standard of having more than 0.5% of the world's plant species being endemic to the region to designate 25 geographical areas of the world as biodiversity hotspots . In response to

2346-585: Is the first city on the Yangtze Plain . After entering Hubei province, the Yangtze receives water from a number of lakes. The largest of these lakes is Dongting Lake , which is located on the border of Hunan and Hubei provinces, and is the outlet for most of the rivers in Hunan. At Wuhan , it receives its biggest tributary, the Han River , bringing water from its northern basin as far as Shaanxi . At

2448-673: Is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows 6,300 km (3,915 mi) in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea . It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world . Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China , and is home to nearly one-third of

2550-618: Is the sole surviving representative of a formerly diverse group. The concept of phylogenetic endemism has also been used to measure the relative uniqueness of the species endemic to an area. In measurements that incorporate phylogenetic endemism, branches of the evolutionary tree are weighted by how narrowly they are distributed. This captures not only the total number of taxa endemic to the area (taxonomic endemism), but also how distant those species are from their living relatives. Schizoendemics, apoendemics and patroendemics can all be classified as types of neoendemics. Schizoendemics arise from

2652-451: Is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be endemic to that particular part of

2754-507: The Beijing dialect instead of Nanjing's and first published in 1867. The spellings Yangtze and Yangtze Kiang was a compromise between the two methods adopted at the 1906 Imperial Postal Conference in Shanghai, which established postal romanization . Hanyu Pinyin was adopted by the PRC's First Congress in 1958, but it was not widely employed in English outside mainland China prior to

2856-582: The Ethiopian Highlands , or large bodies of water far from other lakes, like Lake Baikal , can also have high rates of endemism. Endemism can also be created in areas which act as refuges for species during times of climate change like ice ages . These changes may have caused species to become repeatedly restricted to regions with unusually stable climate conditions, leading to high concentrations of endemic species in areas resistant to climate fluctuations. Endemic species that used to exist in

2958-603: The Han dynasty , the region of the Yangtze River grew ever more important to China's economy. The establishment of irrigation systems (the most famous one is Dujiangyan , northwest of Chengdu, built during the Warring States period) made agriculture very stable and productive, eventually exceeding even the Yellow River region. The Qin and Han empires were actively engaged in the agricultural colonization of

3060-728: The Jiangnan region south of the river ( Wuxi , Suzhou , Hangzhou ) and with northern China (all the way from Yangzhou to Beijing). The less well known ancient Lingqu Canal , connecting the upper Xiang River with the headwaters of the Guijiang , allowed a direct water connection from the Yangtze Basin to the Pearl River Delta . Historically, the Yangtze was the political boundary between north China and south China several times (see History of China ) because crossing

3162-566: The Longshan peoples of the North China Plain . What is now thought of as Chinese culture developed along the more fertile Yellow River basin; the " Yue " people of the lower Yangtze possessed very different traditions – blackening their teeth , cutting their hair short , tattooing their bodies, and living in small settlements among bamboo groves – and were considered barbarous by the northerners. The Central Yangtze valley

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3264-512: The Shandong peninsula within the historical record, the Yangtze has remained largely static. Based on studies of sedimentation rates , however, it is unlikely that the present discharge site predates the late Miocene ( c.  11 Ma ). Prior to this, its headwaters drained south into the Gulf of Tonkin along or near the course of the present Red River . The Yangtze River is important to

3366-551: The Spring and Autumn period 's Five Hegemons and one of the Warring States ' Four Lords . They fell in against themselves, however. Chu's growing power led its rival Jin to support Wu as a counter. Wu successfully sacked Chu's capital Ying in 506 BC, but Chu subsequently supported Yue in its attacks against Wu's southern flank. In 473 BC, King Goujian of Yue fully annexed Wu and moved his court to its eponymous capital at modern Suzhou. In 333 BC, Chu finally united

3468-632: The Yellow River 's principal ports between the floods of 1344 and the 1850s, during which time the Yellow River ran well south of Shandong and discharged into the ocean a mere few hundred kilometers from the mouth of the Yangtze. ) By 1800, English cartographers such as Aaron Arrowsmith had adopted the French style of the name as Yang-tse or Yang-tse Kiang . The British diplomat Thomas Wade emended this to Yang-tzu Chiang as part of his formerly popular romanization of Chinese , based on

3570-474: The country's population . The Yangtze has played a major role in the history , culture , and economy of China . For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP , and the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in

3672-642: The "Yangzi River", from which the English name Yangtze is derived, is the local name for the Lower Yangtze in the region of Yangzhou . The name likely comes from an ancient ferry crossing called Yángzǐ or Yángzǐjīn ( 揚子 / 揚子津 ). Europeans who arrived in the Yangtze River Delta region applied this local name to the whole river. The dividing site between upstream and midstream is considered to be at Yichang and that between midstream and downstream at Hukou ( Jiujiang ). The river

3774-747: The 2,308 km (1,434 mi) of the Yangtze from Yibin upstream to the confluence with the Batang River near Yushu in Qinghai, while the Tongtian River ("River that leads to Heaven") describes the 813 km (505 mi) section from Yushu up to the confluence of the Tuotuo River and the Dangqu River . In Old Chinese , the Yangtze was simply called Jiang/Kiang 江 , a character of phono-semantic compound origin, combining

3876-563: The 9th century BC. Traditional accounts credit these changes to northern refugees ( Taibo and Zhongyong in Wu and Wuyi in Yue) who assumed power over the local tribes, though these are generally assumed to be myths invented to legitimate them to other Zhou rulers. As the kingdoms of Wu and Yue , they were famed as fishers, shipwrights, and sword-smiths. Adopting Chinese characters , political institutions, and military technology, they were among

3978-960: The Balkan Peninsula, Turkey, Alps, Cuba, New Caledonia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the North American Appalachians, and scattered distribution in California, Oregon, and Washington and elsewhere. For example, Mayer and Soltis considered the widespread subspecies Streptanthus glandulosus subsp. glandulosus which grows on normal soils, to be a paleoendemic, whereas closely related endemic forms of S. glandulosus occurring on serpentine soil patches are neoendemics which recently evolved from subsp. glandulosus . Obligate cave-dwelling species, known as troglobites, are often endemic to small areas, even to single individual caves, because cave habitats are by nature restricted, isolated, and fragmented. A high level of adaptation to

4080-607: The Chinese government to make the river safer in 1917 by removing some of the most difficult obstacles and threats with explosives. In August 1917, British Asiatic Petroleum became the first foreign merchant steamship on the Upper Yangtze. Commercial firms, Robert Dollar Company, Jardine Matheson , Butterfield and Swire and Standard Oil added their own steamers on the river between 1917 and 1919. Between 1918 and 1919, Sichuan warlord violence and escalating civil war put Sichuan Steam Navigational Company out of business. Shutung

4182-504: The Chinese term for the mouth of the Yangtze ( 江口 , p   Jiāngkǒu ) as the name of the river itself. The name Blue River began to be applied in the 18th century, apparently owing to a former name of the Dam Chu or Min and to analogy with the Yellow River , but it was frequently explained in early English references as a 'translation' of Jiang , Jiangkou , or Yangzijiang . Very common in 18th- and 19th-century sources,

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4284-571: The East African Rift Lakes have diversified into many more endemic species than the other fish families in the same lakes, possibly due to such factors. Plants that become endemic on isolated islands are often those which have a high rate of dispersal and are able to reach such islands by being dispersed by birds. While birds are less likely to be endemic to a region based on their ability to disperse via flight, there are over 2,500 species which are considered endemic, meaning that

4386-424: The English language as a loan word from French endémique , and originally seems to have been used in the sense of diseases that occur at a constant amount in a country, as opposed to epidemic diseases, which are exploding in cases. The word was used in biology in 1872 to mean a species restricted to a specific location by Charles Darwin . The less common term 'precinctive' has been used by some entomologists as

4488-610: The Female Yak "; transliterated into Chinese : 直曲 ; pinyin : Zhíqū ). The river originates from several tributaries in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau , two of which are commonly referred to as the "source." Traditionally, the Chinese government has recognized the source as the Tuotuo tributary at the base of a glacier lying on the west of Geladandong Mountain in the Tanggula Mountains . This source

4590-551: The Upper Yangtze on Leechuan at the end of 1898. With Plant's design input, Little had SS Pioneer built with Plant in command. In June 1900, Plant was the first to successfully pilot a merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze from Yichang to Chongqing. Pioneer was sold to Royal Navy after its first run due to threat from the Boxer Rebellion and renamed HMS Kinsha . Germany's steamship effort that same year on SS Suixing ended in catastrophe. On Suixing's maiden voyage,

4692-510: The Yangtze River refers to the section from Yibin to Yichang; the middle part refers to the section from Yichang to Hukou County , where Lake Poyang meets the river; the downstream part is from Hukou to Shanghai. The origin of the Yangtze River has been dated by some geologists to about 45 million years ago in the Eocene , but this dating has been disputed. Although the mouth of the Yellow River has fluctuated widely north and south of

4794-517: The Yangtze lowlands, maintaining a system of dikes to protect farmland from seasonal floods. By the Song dynasty, the area along the Yangtze had become among the wealthiest and most developed parts of the country, especially in the lower reaches of the river. Early in the Qing dynasty, the region called Jiangnan (that includes the southern part of Jiangsu , the northern part of Zhejiang and Jiangxi , and

4896-546: The above, the World Wildlife Fund has split the world into a few hundred geographical ' ecoregions '. These have been designed to include as many species as possible that only occur in a single ecoregion, and these species are thus 'endemics' to these ecoregions. Since plenty of these ecoregions have a high prevalence of endemics existing within them, many National Parks have been formed around or within them to further promote conservation. The Caparaó National Park

4998-784: The aftermath of the disaster. The 1998 Yangtze River floods were a series of major floods that lasted from middle of June to the beginning of September 1998 along the Yangtze. In the summer of 1998, China experienced massive flooding of parts of the Yangtze River , resulting in 3,704 dead, 15 million homeless and $ 26 billion in economic loss. Other sources report a total loss of 4150 people, and 180 million people were affected. A staggering 25 million acres (100,000 km ) were evacuated, 13.3 million houses were damaged or destroyed. The floods caused $ 26 billion in damages. The 2016 China floods caused US$ 22 billion in damages. Endemism Endemism

5100-551: The bridge would influence and shape various studies on structural engineering. This would lead to resolutions to known issues and research proposals in the engineering field. For example, a reasonable method of a wind resistance test was developed based on the unique structural integrity of the bridge. As a result, the Ministry of Communication of China recognize the bridge as a symbol of innovation in bridge technology. The bridge has provided many functional contributions as well. With

5202-583: The concept. In their view, everything is endemic, even cosmopolitan species are endemic to Earth, and earlier definitions restricting endemics to specific locations are wrong. Thus the subdivisions neoendemics and paleoendemics are without merit regarding the study of distributions, because these concepts consider that an endemic has a distribution limited to one place. Instead, they propose four different categories: holoendemics, euryendemics, stenoendemics and rhoendemics. In their scheme cryptoendemics and euendemics are further subdivisions of rhoendemics. In their view,

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5304-518: The concepts of neoendemics and paleoendemics in 1965 to describe the endemics of California. Endemic taxa can also be classified into autochthonous, allochthonous, taxonomic relicts and biogeographic relicts. Paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have recently arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization and polyploidy in plants, and have not dispersed beyond

5406-609: The cool climates of mountain peaks are geographically isolated. For example, in the Alpes-Maritimes department of France, Saxifraga florulenta is an endemic plant that may have evolved in the Late Miocene and could have once been widespread across the Mediterranean Basin . Volcanoes also tend to harbor a number of endemic species. Plants on volcanoes tend to fill a specialized ecological niche , with

5508-535: The cultural origins of southern China and Japan. Human activity has been verified in the Three Gorges area as far back as 27,000 years ago, and by the 5th millennium BC, the lower Yangtze was a major population center occupied by the Hemudu and Majiabang cultures , both among the earliest cultivators of rice. By the 3rd millennium BC, the successor Liangzhu culture showed evidence of influence from

5610-518: The daily traffic flow being at 30,000 on the bridge, the commute between Taizhou, Jiangsu i and Changzhou has been reduced from 2 hours to 1. The structural achievement is seen as a promoter for the areas as it connects east to west. This progress is predicted to help accelerate development of the surrounding cities, especially Taizhou. Altogether the Taizhou Bridge construction project was 62.088 km (38.580 mi) long. The north bridge

5712-684: The deadliest natural disasters ever recorded, and almost certainly the deadliest of the 20th century (when pandemics and famines are discounted). Estimates of the total death toll range from 145,000 to between 3.7 million and 4 million. The Yangtze flooded again in 1935 , causing great loss of life. From June to September 1954, the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in Hubei Province. Due to unusually high volume of precipitation as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in

5814-484: The environment cause species to undergo range shifts (potentially expanding their range into a larger area, or becoming extirpated from an area they once lived), go extinct, or diversify into more species. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution , having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to species (and other taxonomic levels) that are restricted to

5916-586: The equivalent of 'endemic'. Precinctive was coined in 1900 by David Sharp when describing the Hawaiian insects, as he was uncomfortable with the fact that the word ' endemic ' is often associated with diseases. 'Precinctive' was first used in botany by Vaughan MacCaughey in Hawaii in 1917. A species is considered to be endemic to the area where it is found naturally, to the exclusion of other areas; presence in captivity or botanical gardens does not disqualify

6018-534: The first 2,600 km (1,600 mi) of its length, the river has fallen more than 5,200 m (17,100 ft). It enters the basin of Sichuan at Yibin . While in the Sichuan basin, it receives several large tributaries, increasing its water volume significantly. It then cuts through Mount Wushan bordering Chongqing and Hubei to create the famous Three Gorges . Eastward of the Three Gorges, Yichang

6120-478: The first foreigner since 1949 to navigate the Yangtze. His months-long journey was documented both in his 2004 book "Kineserne syr med lang tråd" and the TV show "Kløvedal i Kina" by DR . In August 2019, Welsh adventurer Ash Dykes became the first person to complete the 4,000-mile (6,400 km) trek along the course of the river, walking for 352 days from its source to its mouth. Tens of millions of people live in

6222-496: The floodplain of the Yangtze valley, an area that naturally floods every summer and is habitable only because it is protected by river dikes. The floods large enough to overflow the dikes have caused great distress to those who live and farm there. Floods of note include those of 1931, 1954, and 1998. The 1931 Central China floods or the Central China floods of 1931 were a series of floods that are generally considered among

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6324-527: The lower Yangtze by annexing Yue, whose royal family was said to have fled south and established the Minyue kingdom in Fujian . Qin was able to unite China by first subduing Ba and Shu on the upper Yangtze in modern Sichuan , giving them a strong base to attack Chu's settlements along the river. The state of Qin conquered the central Yangtze region, the previous heartland of Chu, in 278 BC, and incorporated

6426-558: The middle stretch of the Yangtze River late in the spring of 1954, the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June. Despite efforts to open three important flood gates to alleviate the rising water by diverting it, the flood level continued to rise until it hit the historic high of 44.67 m in Jingzhou, Hubei and 29.73 m in Wuhan. The number of dead from this flood was estimated at 33,000, including those who died of plague in

6528-442: The most powerful states during the later Zhou . In the middle Yangtze, the state of Jing seems to have begun in the upper Han River valley a minor Zhou polity, but it adapted to native culture as it expanded south and east into the Yangtze valley. In the process, it changed its name to Chu . Whether native or nativizing, the Yangtze states held their own against the northern Chinese homeland: some lists credit them with three of

6630-583: The most risky and deadly sections of the three gorges. Archibald John Little took an interest in Upper Yangtze navigation when in 1876, the Chefoo Convention opened Chongqing to consular residence but stipulated that foreign trade might only commence once steamships had succeeded in ascending the river to that point. Little formed the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. and built Kuling but his attempts to take

6732-461: The name fell out of favor due to growing awareness of its lack of any connection to the river's Chinese names and to the irony of its application to such a muddy waterway. Matteo Ricci 's 1615 Latin account included descriptions of the "Ianſu" and "Ianſuchian." The posthumous account's translation of the name as Fils de la Mer ("Son of the Ocean") shows that Ricci, who by the end of his life

6834-603: The normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the PRC in 1979; since that time, the spelling Yangzi has also been used. The source and upper reaches of the Yangtze are located in ethnic Tibetan areas of Qinghai . In Tibetan, the Tuotuo headwaters are the Machu ( Tibetan : རྨ་ཆུ་ , Wylie : rma-chu , lit. "Red Water"). The Tongtian is the Drichu ( འབྲི་ཆུ་ , ‘Bri Chu’), literally "Water of

6936-409: The northern tip of Jiangxi province, Lake Poyang , the biggest freshwater lake in China, merges into the river. The river then runs through Anhui and Jiangsu , receiving more water from innumerable smaller lakes and rivers, and finally reaches the East China Sea at Shanghai. Four of China's five main freshwater lakes contribute their waters to the Yangtze River. Traditionally, the upstream part of

7038-626: The periods 1911–12, 1927–37, and 1945–49. The Jardine , the first steamship to sail the river, was built for Jardine, Matheson & Co. in 1835. This small vessel was to carry passengers and mail between Lintin Island , Macao , and Huangpu . However, the Chinese, draconian in their application of the rules relating to foreign vessels, were unhappy about a "fire-ship" steaming up the Canton River. The acting Viceroy of Liangguang issued an edict warning that she would be fired on if she attempted

7140-677: The pool remains isolated. Other areas very similar to the Galapagos Islands of the Pacific Ocean exist and foster high rates of endemism. The Socotra Archipelago of Yemen, located in the Indian Ocean, has seen a new endemic species of parasitic leech, Myxobdella socotrensis, appear. This species is restricted to freshwater springs, where it may attach to and feed upon native crabs. Mountains can be seen as ' sky islands ': refugia of endemics because species that live in

7242-404: The presence of endemic species in an area is a good method to find geographical regions that can be considered priorities for conservation. Endemism can thus be studied as a proxy for measuring biodiversity of a region. The concept of finding endemic species that occur in the same region to designate 'endemism hotspots' was first proposed by Paul Müller in a 1973 book. According to him, this

7344-619: The rate of endemism is particularly high. For example, many endemic species are found on remote islands , such as Hawaii , the Galápagos Islands and Socotra . Populations on an island are isolated, with little opportunity to interbreed with outside populations, which eventually causes reproductive isolation and separation into different species. Darwin's finches in the Galápagos archipelago are examples of species endemic to islands. Similarly, isolated mountainous regions like

7446-528: The region into its expanding empire. Qin then used its connections along the Xiang River to expand into Hunan , Jiangxi and Guangdong , setting up military commanderies along the main lines of communication. At the collapse of the Qin Dynasty , these southern commanderies became the independent Nanyue Empire under Zhao Tuo while Chu and Han vied with each other for control of the north. Since

7548-587: The river through Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality is also known as the Chuān Jiāng ( 川江 ) or " Sichuan River ". In Hubei , the river is also called the Jīng Jiāng ( 荆江 ; 荊江 ) or the "Jing River" after Jingzhou , one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China. In Anhui , the river takes on the local name Wǎn Jiāng after the shorthand name for Anhui, wǎn (皖). Yángzǐ Jiāng ( 揚子江 ; 扬子江 ) or

7650-739: The river was difficult. This occurred notably during the Southern and Northern Dynasties , and the Southern Song . Many battles took place along the river, the most famous being the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD during the Three Kingdoms period. The Yangtze was the site of naval battles between the Song dynasty and Jurchen Jin during the Jin–Song wars . In the Battle of Caishi of 1161,

7752-706: The run and by 1915, foreign ships expressed their interest too. Plant was appointed by Chinese Maritime Customs Service as First Senior River Inspector in 1915. In this role, Plant installed navigational marks and established signaling systems. He also wrote Handbook for the Guidance of Shipmasters on the Ichang-Chungking Section of the Yangtze River , a detailed and illustrated account of the Upper Yangtze's currents, rocks, and other hazards with navigational instruction. Plant trained hundreds of Chinese and foreign pilots and issued licenses and worked with

7854-510: The ships of the Jin emperor Wanyan Liang clashed with the Song fleet on the Yangtze. Song soldiers fired bombs of lime and sulfur using trebuchets at the Jurchen warships. The battle was a Song victory that halted the invasion by the Jin. The Battle of Tangdao was another Yangtze naval battle in the same year. Politically, Nanjing was the capital of China several times, although most of

7956-475: The source of the Yangtze since the discovery of the Jari Hill source. These tributaries join and the river then runs eastward through Qinghai (Tsinghai), turning southward down a deep valley at the border of Sichuan (Szechwan) and Tibet to reach Yunnan . In the course of this valley, the river's elevation drops from above 5,000 m (16,000 ft) to less than 1,000 m (3,300 ft). Thus, over

8058-464: The south bank has 40 km (25 mi) of connecting highway. The north bridge's double suspension spans are among the longest in the world. The structural integrity of the bridge is dependent on the main lines. However, these main lines are constantly exposed to harsh weathers which can affect its strength and longevity through erosion. To address this issue, The Jiangsu Province Communications Planning and Design Institute Limited Company established

8160-408: The southeastern part of Anhui ) provided 1 ⁄ 3 – 1 ⁄ 2 of the nation's revenues. The Yangtze has long been the backbone of China's inland water transportation system, which remained particularly important for almost two thousand years, until the construction of the national railway network during the 20th century. The Grand Canal connects the lower Yangtze with the major cities of

8262-484: The species is restricted to an area less than five million hectares (twelve million acres). Microorganisms were traditionally not believed to form endemics. The hypothesis 'everything is everywhere', first stated in Dutch by Lourens G.M. Baas Becking in 1934, describes the theory that the distribution of organisms smaller than 2 mm is cosmopolitan where habitats occur that support their growth. Endemism can reflect

8364-548: The tankers Mei Ping, Mei An and Mei Hsia, which were collectively destroyed on December 12, 1937, when Japanese warplanes bombed and sank the U.S.S. Panay. One of the Standard Oil captains who survived this attack had served on the Upper River for 14 years. Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong took staged swims in the river in 1956 and 1966 at Wuhan in publicity stunts to demonstrate his health, also starting

8466-424: The term 'aneuendemics' in 1991 for species that have more or fewer chromosomes than their relatives due to aneuploidy . Pseudoendemics are taxa that have possibly recently evolved from a mutation. Holoendemics is a concept introduced by Richardson in 1978 to describe taxa that have remained endemic to a restricted distribution for a very long time. In a 2000 paper, Myers and de Grave further attempted to redefine

8568-572: The threatened nature of a geographic region. A similar pattern had been found regarding mammals, Lasioglossum bees, Plusiinae moths, and swallowtail butterflies in North America: these different groups of taxa did not correlate geographically with each other regarding endemism and species richness. Especially using mammals as flagship species proved to be a poor system of identifying and protecting areas of high invertebrate biodiversity. In response to this, other scientists again defended

8670-700: The time its territory only covered the southeastern part of China, such as the Wu kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period, the Eastern Jin Dynasty , and during the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods. Only the Ming occupied most parts of China from their capital at Nanjing , though it later moved the capital to Beijing. The ROC capital was located in Nanjing in

8772-640: The trip. On the Jardine's first trial run from Lintin Island the forts on both sides of the Bogue opened fire and she was forced to turn back. The Chinese authorities issued a further warning insisting that the ship leave Chinese waters. The Jardine in any case needed repairs and was sent to Singapore . Subsequently, Lord Palmerston , the Foreign Secretary decided mainly on the "suggestions" of William Jardine to declare war on China. In mid-1840,

8874-669: The upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas , a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Cháng Jiāng ( 长江 ; 長江 ) or " Long River " is the official name for the Yangtze in Mandarin Chinese . However, the Chinese have given different names to the upstream sections of the river up to its confluence with the Min River at Yibin , Sichuan. Jinsha River ("Gold Sands River") refers to

8976-420: The vessel further upriver than Yichang were thwarted by the Chinese authorities who were concerned about the potential loss of transit duties, competition to their native junk trade and physical damage to their crafts caused by steamship wakes. Kuling was sold to China Merchants Steam Navigation Company for lower river service. In 1890, the Chinese government agreed to open Chongqing to foreign trade as long as it

9078-445: The vessel hit a rock and sunk, killing its captain and ending realistic hopes of regular commercial steam service on the Upper Yangtze. In 1908, local Sichuan merchants and their government partnered with Captain Plant to form Sichuan Steam Navigation Company becoming the first successful service between Yichang and Chongqing. Captain Plant designed and commanded its two ships, SS Shutung and SS Shuhun . Other Chinese vessels came onto

9180-733: The water radical 氵 with the homophone 工 (now pronounced gōng , but *kˤoŋ in Old Chinese ). Kong was probably a word in the Austroasiatic language of local peoples such as the Yue . Similar to *krong in Proto-Vietnamese and krung in Mon , all meaning "river", it is related to modern Vietnamese sông (river) and Khmer krung (city on riverside), whence Thai krung (กรุง capital city), not kôngkea (water) which

9282-467: The world that is in use . In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network , comprising railways, roads and airports to create a new economic belt alongside the river. The Yangtze flows through a wide array of ecosystems and is habitat to several endemic and threatened species, including the Chinese alligator , the narrow-ridged finless porpoise , and also

9384-531: The world. An endemic species can also be referred to as an endemism or, in scientific literature, as an endemite . Similarly many species found in the Western ghats of India are examples of endemism. Endemism is an important concept in conservation biology for measuring biodiversity in a particular place and evaluating the risk of extinction for species. Endemism is also of interest in evolutionary biology , because it provides clues about how changes in

9486-479: Was an early shipping company founded in 1876 in London, initially to trade up the Yangtze River from their Shanghai base with passengers and cargo. Chinese coastal trade started shortly after, and in 1883 a regular service to Australia was initiated. Steamers came late to the upper river, the section stretching from Yichang to Chongqing. Freshets from Himalayan snowmelt created treacherous seasonal currents. But summer

9588-509: Was better navigationally and the three gorges , described as a "150-mile passage which is like the narrow throat of an hourglass," posed hazardous threats of crosscurrents, whirlpools and eddies, creating significant challenges to steamship efforts. Furthermore, Chongqing is 700 – 800 feet above sea level, requiring powerful engines to make the upriver climb. Junk travel accomplished the upriver feat by employing 70–80 trackers, men hitched to hawsers who physically pulled ships upriver through some of

9690-501: Was called Quian ( 江 ) and Quianshui ( 江水 ) by Marco Polo and appeared on the earliest English maps as Kian or Kiam , all recording dialects which preserved forms of the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 江 as Kæwng . By the mid-19th century, these romanizations had standardized as Kiang ; Dajiang , e.g., was rendered as "Ta-Kiang." "Keeang-Koo," "Kyang Kew," "Kian-ku," and related names derived from mistaking

9792-568: Was commandeered by warlords and Shuhun was brought down river to Shanghai for safekeeping. In 1921, when Captain Plant died at sea while returning home to England, a Plant Memorial Fund was established to perpetuate Plant's name and contributions to Upper Yangtze navigation. The largest shipping companies in service, Butterfield & Swire, Jardine Matheson, Standard Oil, Mackenzie & Co., Asiatic Petroleum, Robert Dollar, China Merchants S.N. Co. and British-American Tobacco Co., contributed alongside international friends and Chinese pilots. In 1924,

9894-603: Was fluent in literary Chinese, was introduced to it as the homophonic 洋子江 rather than the usual 揚子江 . Further, although railroads and the Shanghai concessions subsequently turned it into a backwater, Yangzhou was the lower river's principal port for much of the Qing dynasty , directing Liangjiang 's important salt monopoly and connecting the Yangtze with the Grand Canal to Beijing. (That connection also made it one of

9996-566: Was formed in the Atlantic Forest , a biodiversity hotspot located in Brazil, in order to help protect valuable and vulnerable species. Other scientists have argued that endemism is not an appropriate measure of biodiversity, because the levels of threat or biodiversity are not actually correlated to areas of high endemism. When using bird species as an example, it was found that only 2.5% of biodiversity hotspots correlate with endemism and

10098-632: Was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures. Later it became the earliest part of the Yangtze valley to be integrated into the North Chinese cultural sphere. (Northern Chinese were active there since the Bronze Age ). In the lower Yangtze, two Yue tribes, the Gouwu in southern Jiangsu and the Yuyue in northern Zhejiang , display increasing Zhou (i.e., North Chinese) influence starting in

10200-541: Was only discovered in the late 20th century and lies in wetlands at 32°36′14″N 94°30′44″E  /  32.60389°N 94.51222°E  / 32.60389; 94.51222 and 5,170 m (16,960 ft) above sea level just southeast of Chadan Township in Zadoi County , Yushu Prefecture , Qinghai. As the historical spiritual source of the Yangtze, the Geladandong source is still commonly referred to as

10302-874: Was restricted to native crafts. In 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki provided a provision which opened Chongqing fully to foreign trade. Little took up residence in Chongqing and built Leechuan , to tackle the gorges in 1898. In March Leechuan completed the upriver journey to Chongqing but not without the assistance of trackers. Leechuan was not designed for cargo or passengers and if Little wanted to take his vision one step further, he required an expert pilot. In 1898, Little persuaded Captain Samuel Cornell Plant to come out to China to lend his expertise. Captain Plant had just completed navigation of Persia 's Upper Karun River and took up Little's offer to assess

10404-434: Was the home of the now extinct Yangtze river dolphin (or baiji ) and Chinese paddlefish , as well as the Yangtze sturgeon , which is extinct in the wild . In recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, plastic pollution , agricultural runoff , siltation , and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves . A stretch of

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