With a drainage area of 752,443 square kilometers, the Yellow River is as long as 5,600 kilometers. It is the second longest river in China next to the Yangtze River. Bayankara Mountain, which is situated in China’s Qinghai Province, is the source of the Yellow River. This great water artery flows through nine provinces in north China, including Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong. When it passes the Yellow Earth Plateau of Shaanxi Province, the river brings with it a lot of mud and sands, as a result, it has also been known as a river that contains the largest amount of sands in the world. However, as one of the cradles of the ancient Chinese civilization, the Yellow River has played an important role in the development of the human civilization of the alluvial areas on the two banks. That is the reason why it is also named ‘the Mother River’ of the Chinese people.
In ancient times, the middle and lower reaches of the
Yellow River had a very moderate climate and abundant rains, which made these areas quite suitable for human beings to live in. The Yellow Earth Plateau and the alluvial plains of the
Yellow River had very loose soils, which made it very easier for the ancient people to cultivate the lands and develop the ancient agriculture and animal husbandry. In addition, the special properties of the yellow earth made it very convenient for the ancient ancestors to dig caves and dwell inside for quite a long period. In a word, the special natural and geographical environment in these regions provided agreeable conditions for the development of the ancient Chinese civilization. As early as 1.1 million years ago, the Lantian People, who are nowadays believed to be one of the earliest ancestors of the Chinese people, began to live in the alluvial plains of the
Yellow River. What’s more, other ancient people, such as the Dali People, the Dingcun People, and the Hetao People all had lived and created splendid civilizations along the
Yellow River. Numerous relics of the ancient civilizations, including the Yangshao Culture, the Majiayao Culture, the Dawenkou Culture, and the Longshan Culture have been widely found all along the river. These ancient relics excavated are not only large in quantity and variety, but also uninterrupted with each other, therefore they have systematically revealed the developing process of the ancient Chinese civilization.