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River

Yurungkax He

450 km from source to mouth · China.

ChinaChinaFlows into Hotan River

Follow the riverMonth by month

SourceMouthGujangbagh
The river and every tributary in its basin, drawn from RiverATLAS (CC BY 4.0).

In numbers

Length

450km

Average flow

2.3m³/s

Basin

14,575km²

Drop

3,720m

from 4,929 m to 1,209 m

Country

1

The journey

From source to mouth

450 km of river and 4 stops on the way: 4 towns and cities on its banks, dams, bridges and the tributaries that feed it.

4,929 m1,209 m
Karakorumat 4,929 m0 km
Gujangbagh408,894 people312 km
Han’airike43,751 people363 km
Hotan Riverat 1,209 m450 km
0100200300400450 km
  1. 0 kmKarakorumat 4,929 m
  2. 312 kmGujangbagh408,894 people
  3. 328 kmYing'airike10,253 people
  4. 363 kmHan’airike43,751 people
  5. 371 kmYisilamu'awati19,828 people
  6. 450 kmHotan Riverat 1,209 m

Water level along the river (RiverATLAS; the height is exaggerated). Towns: GeoNames and Wikidata; bridges, dams and tributaries: Wikidata.

River in People's Republic of China

At the mouth it carries 2.3 m³/s on average: an Olympic pool every 1,073 seconds. It drops from 4,929 m to 1,209 m, 8.3 m per kilometre on average. Its basin covers 14,575 km², about the size of TL. 520,000 people live in it. Highest water: from July to August; lowest: from November to February. No large dam holds it back: it is one of the world's free-flowing rivers.

Read more on Wikipedia

Where to start

  • GujangbaghLargest city on its banks · 408,894 people
  • Hotan Airport (HTN)Nearest airport with scheduled flights, 10 km from the city
  • From May to SeptemberThe best months to visit

Yurungkax He, month by month

Highest water: from July to August

Lowest water: from November to February. Freezing months (average below −4 °C): from December to February. Best months to visit: from May to September.

0.3
-11°1 mmJan
0.3
-6°1 mmFeb
3.4
1°1 mmMar
3.6
8°2 mmApr
6.8
13°6 mmMay
7.0
17°6 mmJun
8.8
19°7 mmJul
8.6
18°6 mmAug
6.0
14°2 mmSep
3.3
6°1 mmOct
0.9
-2°0 mmNov
0.4
-8°1 mmDec
Water (estimated flow)Air (average) Rain (mm)Best months

From about 0.3 m³/s in the lowest month to 8.8 m³/s in the highest. An estimate: the monthly flow is modelled from the lowest and highest months of WaterGAP (RiverATLAS, 1971–2000) and the rain and snow along the river (WorldClim). Dams change the real rhythm. The chip is the average air temperature; below it, the month's rain.

Plan the trip

Plan the trip: boat trips, a bed by the river, a car

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

The basin

Yurungkax He: the basin in numbers

18,639 km² of land send their water to this river. This is what lives on it.

Free-flowingDams upstream can hold only 0.0% of a year's flow: the river still keeps its natural rhythm.
  • 520,000people live in the basin
  • 28/km²people per km²
  • 4,005maverage altitude of the basin
  • 46mmof rain a year (basin average)
  • -1.3°Caverage air temperature
  • 0.1%covered by lakes
  • 18%glaciers
  • 50%permafrost

What covers the basin

  • 4% Forest
  • 2% Cropland
  • 21% Pasture
  • 2% Towns and cities
  • 18% Ice

RiverATLAS (HydroATLAS v1.0, CC BY 4.0): land cover, people, protected areas, glaciers and dams over the whole basin upstream of the mouth.

Along the river

Yurungkax He: what you find on the way

  • 1Dams

From OpenStreetMap, within 2.0 km of the river. Not mapped is not the same as not there.

From space

The source and the mouth, seen from orbit

Yurungkax He: satellite view of the source
The source14 km across
Yurungkax He: satellite view of the mouth
The mouth19 km across

Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 by EOX IT Services GmbH (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2016), CC BY 4.0. The glowing line is the river as drawn by RiverATLAS.

Photos

Yurungkax He in pictures

Yurungkash River near Hotan
Voidvector · CC BY-SA 4.0
G315 Highway, Hotan Pref., Xinjiang, China-Digging for jade
Yoshi Canopus · CC BY-SA 4.0
Jade collecting under Yurungkash River Bridge in Hotan
Voidvector · CC BY-SA 4.0

Where these numbers come from

Name, length, placesWikidata (Q2339502) · CC0
Course, profile, basinRiverATLAS v1.0 (HydroATLAS, Linke et al. 2019) · CC BY 4.0 — followed from the source to the mouth given by Wikidata
FlowWaterGAP (RiverATLAS), 1971–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Climate along the riverWorldClim (RiverATLAS), 1970–2000 · CC BY 4.0
Towns, bridges, damsWikidata · CC0; GeoNames · CC BY 4.0
Along the river© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons

Every source and licence is on the data sources page.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.

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