The 1194 Yellow River flood was a series of natural disasters along the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

during the

Jurchen Jin dynasty Jurchen may refer to: * Jurchen people, Tungusic people who inhabited the region of Manchuria until the 17th century ** Haixi Jurchens, a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty ** Jianzhou Jurchens, a grouping of ...

. The Grand Canal was used to provide extensive disaster relief, but the flood devastated large swathes of the

north China plain The North China Plain or Huang-Huai-Hai Plain () is a large-scale downfaulted rift basin formed in the late Paleogene and Neogene and then modified by the deposits of the Yellow River. It is the largest alluvial plain of China. The plain is bord ...

, wrecked the regional economy, and created many thousands of refugees.Ramsey, Robert.
Languages of China
. ''China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom''. Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2002. , 9780824825775. Accessed 22 Oct 2012. It altered the course of the Yellow River from that taken along the

Hai River The Hai River (海河, lit. "Sea River"), also known as the Peiho, ("White River"), or Hai Ho, is a Chinese river connecting Beijing to Tianjin and the Bohai Sea. The Hai River at Tianjin is formed by the confluence of five watercourses: the S ...

past modern

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

during the 1048 floodElvin, Mark & Liu Cuirong (eds.) ''Studies in Environment and History:''
Sediments of Time: Environment and Society in Chinese History
', p. 555. Cambridge Uni. Press, 1998. . Accessed 15 Oct. 2011. and also permanently shifted (and shrank) the course of the

Si River The Si River is a river in Shandong Province, China. It also ran through the area of modern Jiangsu Province until floods in 1194. Course The Si rises in the southern foothills of the Mengshan Mountains (蒙山), then flows through Sishui County ...

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

. The former course into the

Huai The Huai River (), formerly romanized as the Hwai, is a major river in China. It is located about midway between the Yellow River and Yangtze, the two longest rivers and largest drainage basins in China, and like them runs from west to east. ...

was no longer available once the Yellow River shifted again, as it had left behind 46 metres of mud behind.

References

Yellow River flood, 1194 Yellow River flood, 1194 Yellow River flood, 1194 Yellow River floods 12th-century natural disasters Medieval floods {{flood-stub