The Razdolnaya (russian: Раздольная, formerly: Суйфун ''Suyfun'') or Suifen () is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. It flows into the

Amur Bay Amur Bay (russian: Амурский Залив, ''Amurskiy Zaliv''), a major bay within Peter the Great Gulf of the Sea of Japan, has an approximate length of , a width of to , and a depth of . It is part of a larger bay formed with Ussuri B ...

of the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, i ...

The name

''Suifen'' is the

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...

word ''(suifun)'' for awl, referring to the shape of a species of '' Oncomelania'' snail. In Russian, the river was originally known under the same Manchu / Chinese name (rendered as Суйфун (Suifun) in Russian). In 1972, in the aftermath of the

Zhenbao Island Zhenbao Island () or Damansky Island (russian: о́стров Дама́нский, ''ostrov Damanskiy'') is an island with an area of only . It is on the Ussuri River on the border between Primorsky Krai, Russia, and Heilongjiang Province, C ...

incident (1969),

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

s of Chinese origin in

Primorsky Krai Primorsky Krai (russian: Приморский край, r=Primorsky kray, p=prʲɪˈmorskʲɪj kraj), informally known as Primorye (, ), is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia, located in the Far East region of the country and is a part of t ...

were replaced en masse with newly designed Russian names; as part of this project, the Russian part of the Suifen received the name ''Razdolnaya'', which can be translated from Russian as "widely flowing".

Geography

The source of the Suifen is the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...

of the Xiaosuifen (Lesser Suifen) River and the Dasuifen (Greater Suifen) River in

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () Postal romanization, formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a Provinces of China, province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is th ...

Suifenhe City Suifenhe () is a county-level city in southeastern Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China, located where the former Chinese Eastern Railway crosses the border with Russia's town of Pogranichny, Primorsky Krai. In January 2014, Su ...

was named after the Chinese name of the river. Downstream of the city, the river enters Russian territory, and flows into

through

Khanka Lowlands Lake Khanka (russian: о́зеро Ха́нка) or Lake Xingkai (), is a freshwater lake on the border between Primorsky Krai, Russia and Heilongjiang province, Northeast China (at ). Etymology On the Delisle map of 1706, the lake is na ...

. The length of the river is , of which is in Russia; the

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

covers . The major tributaries of the river are the

Granitnaya The Granitnaya (russian: Гранитная, formerly Ушагоу ''Ushagou'', , literally "Hubutu River"), is a river located on the border between Primorsky Krai of Far Eastern Russia and the Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () formerly romanized ...

(99 km), the Borisovka (86 km) and the Komarovka (76 km, main tributary Rakovka).primpogoda.ru
/ref> The city

Ussuriysk Ussuriysk (russian: Уссури́йск) is a city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, located in the fertile valley of the Razdolnaya River, north of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the krai, and about from both the China–Russia border and ...

was founded in 1866 at the confluence of the Suifen and Komarovka rivers.

References

Drainage basins of the Sea of Japan Rivers of Heilongjiang Rivers of Primorsky Krai {{China-river-stub