The Hongshui River is a major river in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern

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 ...

. It is one of the main rivers in the basin of the Xi River, which in its turn is one of the main tributaries of the Pearl River. Because it flows through the red rock series area, the river is reddish brown, hence the name ''Hongshui River'' (). Conventionally, the Hongshui River is formed by the merging of the Beipan and Nanpan Rivers (Beipanjiang and Nanpanjiang, i.e., the Northern and Southern Pan Rivers) at the

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to t ...

-Guangxi border. From there, it flows in the general southeastern direction. In

Laibin Laibin (, Zhuang: Laizbinh) is a prefecture-level city in the central part of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. History Laibin is an ancient town with more than 2000 years of history. The area was settled in prehistoric times, more tha ...

Prefecture in central Guangxi the Hongshui merges with the

Liu River The Liu River (, pinyin: Liǔ Jiāng, literally: ''Willow River'') is a tributary within the Pearl River system in Guangxi, China. It is formed by the confluence of the Rong and Long rivers in Fengshan. It flows south through Liuzhou and then t ...

that comes from the north, forming the

Qian River The Qian River () is the name of a short section of the Xi River system and, thus, the greater Pearl River system in Guangxi, China. It is formed by where the Liu Jiang meets the larger Hongshui He east of Laibin, then flows southeast through ...

, which continues to the east toward, eventually, the Xi River. The Hongshui has 10 large dams on it, that provide electric power and

flood control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

. According to the '' Beijing Review'' the Hongshui River had 300 shoals that interfered with navigating the river with cargo vessels. Several of the dams are equipped with

ship lifts A boat lift, ship lift, or lift lock is a machine for transporting boats between water at two different elevations, and is an alternative to the canal lock. It may be vertically moving, like the Anderton boat lift in England, rotational, like ...

capable of lifting vessels of 300 tons displacement.

References

Rivers of Guangxi Tributaries of the Pearl River (China) {{China-river-stub