710 articles
Xiang
The Xiang River, also called Xiangjiang (湘江), is a major Yangtze tributary flowing about 844 km north through Hunan into Dongting Lake, and is Hunan's namesake abbreviation.
Xiao and Xiang Rivers
The Xiao and Xiang Rivers (潇湘), in Hunan Province, China, both flow into Dongting Lake; their name, Xiaoxiang, became a classic subject of Chinese landscape painting.
Xingu (landform)
Xingu River (Rio Xingu), a ~1,800 km clearwater Amazon tributary rising in Mato Grosso, with mean discharge 9,700 m3/s, the Volta Grande rapids, indigenous territories, and the Belo Monte dam (11,233 MW).
Yalu River
The Yalu River (Amnokkang; Yalu Jiang) is a 790 km river forming the western China–North Korea border from Mount Paektu to the sea at Dandong and Sinuiju, fixed by the 1962 border treaty and crossed by the New Yalu River Bridge, opened 2026.
Yamuna (यमुना)
Yamuna (यमुना), largest tributary of the Ganges, rises at Yamunotri Glacier, flows 1,376 km past Delhi to Prayagraj; sacred to Hindus and among the world's most polluted rivers.
Yangtze
Yangtze (长江, Changjiang), Asia's longest and the world's third-longest river, 6,300 km from the Tibetan Plateau to the East China Sea; home of the Three Gorges Dam, a 2021 ten-year fishing ban, and recovering fish biodiversity.
Yarra River
The Yarra River (Birrarung, 'place of mists and shadows') is a 242 km Victorian river from Mt Baw Baw to Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne's drinking-water source, Wurundjeri country, and the city's founding waterway.
Yellow (landform)
Yellow (landform): the Yellow River (Huang He) system of northern China, a 5,400 km silt-laden river from the Tibetan Plateau to the Bohai Sea, cradle of Chinese civilization and China's most flood-prone landform.
Yellow River (黄河)
Yellow River (黄河, Huang He), China's second largest river and the world's most sediment-laden major river, draining the Loess Plateau to the Bohai Sea; peak sediment load 2.1 Gt/yr in 1958, 1,593 levee breaches historically, sediment now down ~90% since the 1980s.
Yellowstone River
The Yellowstone River is a 671-mile tributary of the Missouri River rising in Wyoming, flowing through Yellowstone National Park and Montana, and the longest undammed river in the Lower 48.
Yenisei
Yenisei (Енисей), Siberia's largest Arctic river, formed near Kyzyl by the Bolshoi and Malyi Yenisei; 4092 km long, 2,580,000 km² basin, 17,400 m³/s flow into the Kara Sea, heavily dammed.
Yenisey
Yenisey (Yenisei), Siberia's great north-flowing river, largest Arctic river by discharge (673 km3/yr), basin 2.58 million km2, heavily dammed, contaminated by plutonium plant at Zheleznogorsk.
Yom
The Yom River (Thai: แม่น้ำยม, Maenam Yom) is a 735 km river in northern Thailand and a principal tributary of the Nan River, part of the Chao Phraya system.
Youghiogheny River
Youghiogheny River: north-flowing Monongahela tributary rising in West Virginia, crossing Maryland into Pennsylvania. 184-foot Youghiogheny Dam (1944) impounds Youghiogheny River Lake; known for Ohiopyle class III–IV whitewater and coal-mine drainage history.
Yukon River
Yukon River (Gwich'in Yu-kun-ah, "great river"): 3,200 km river flowing from British Columbia through Yukon and Alaska to the Bering Sea; fourth-longest in North America, gold rush sternwheeler highway, now under Chinook salmon fishing moratorium to 2031.
Zambezian Highveld
The Zambezian Highveld is a freshwater ecoregion, numbered 560 in the Freshwater Ecoregions of the World classification, covering Zimbabwe's interior plateaus above 600 m and draining to the Zambezi, Save, and Limpopo rivers.
Zambezian Lowveld
Zambezian Lowveld (FEOW ecoregion 576): southern African freshwater ecoregion of ~520,418 km2 on low-lying coastal rivers from south of the Zambezi Delta, where tropical Zambezian and temperate fish faunas overlap; 105 native fish species, status Vulnerable.
Zeravshan
Zeravshan (Зарафшон), also Zarafshan or Zerafshan, a Central Asian river rising in Tajikistan's Alai Range, watering Samarkand and Bukhara oases; formerly an Amu Darya tributary, it now ends near Gijduvon, its water fully used for irrigation.
Zeya
Zeya (Зея): river in Amur Oblast, largest left tributary of the Amur (1,242 km, 232,000 km² basin), and its Zeya Dam, a 1,330 MW buttress-dam hydro plant launched 1975 with the world's first 220 MW diagonal turbines.
Zhem
Zhem (Emba, Жем) is a 700 km snow-fed river in western Kazakhstan, flowing from the Mugodzhar Mountains toward the Caspian; its 40,400 km2 basin spans Aktobe and Atyrau, and its April 2024 flood inundated Kulsary.