The Grand Canal is a system of interconnected canals linking various major rivers in North and East China, serving as an important waterborne transport infrastructure between the north and the south during Medieval and premodern China. It is the longest artificial waterway in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The canal in Beijing, by the Wanning Bridge.
The Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424) restored the Grand Canal in the Ming era.
Grand Canal. Drawing by William Alexander, draughtsman of the Macartney Embassy to China in 1793.
The Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour, Scroll Six: Entering Suzhou along the Grand Canal dated 1770.
Yangtze or Yangzi is the longest river in Eurasia, the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows 6,300 km (3,915 mi) in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population.
The glaciers of the Tanggula Mountains, the traditional source of the Yangtze River
The Tuotuo River, a headwater stream of the Yangtze River, known in Tibetan as Maqu, or the "Red River"
The first turn of the Yangtze at Shigu (石鼓) in Yunnan, where the river turns 180 degrees from southbound to northbound