![Yellowrivermap](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Yellowrivermap.jpg)
The Datong River (), known as the Julak Chu in
Amdo Tibetan
Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two dialects, the farmer dialect and the nomad dialect.
Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional c ...
, is a river in
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 ...
in 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 ...
basin. It has a total length of , and a basin area of . It has an average annual flow of 90.5 cubic meters per second. It was previously spelled Tatung in English.
The river forms in
Tianjun County
Tianjun County is a county of Qinghai Province
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest provinc ...
, part of
Qinghai Province's Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (; mn, á ¬á á ¶á ¢á °á ¢â€¯á ¶á ¢á ¨ á ®á £á ©á á £á ¯ á ²á ¥á ªá ¡á ³ á ¦á ¨á ³á ¦á °á ¦á ²á ¡á ¨â€¯á ¦ á ¥á ªá ¡á ·á ²á ¡á á ¡á ¨ á µá á °á á ¬á ¤ á µá §á ¦; bo, མཚོ་ནུབ་འ...
. It then flows easterly separating the
Qilian Mountains
The Qilian Mountains (, also romanized as Tsilien; Mongghul: Chileb), together with the Altyn-Tagh (Altun Shan) also known as Nan Shan (, literally "Southern Mountains"), as it is to the south of Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunl ...
from the
Daban Mountains. The main centre of population along its length here is
Menyuan. The Datong meets the
Huangshui River at Qinghai's border with
Gansu
Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province.
The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...
.
While it is a tributary of the Huangshui in name, the Datong is actually the main stem of the Huangshui River system and is considerably longer than the Huangshui.
References
Rivers of China
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