Xiang River

The Xiang River , in older transliterations as the Siang River or Hsiang River, is a river in southern China. The river gave Hunan its Chinese abbreviation, the same as ''Xiang'' .

Geography

Originating from Haiyang Mountain in of Guangxi, the Xiang is the largest river in Hunan and one of the largest of Yangtze River. It is 856- long and 670-km of it is in Hunan. People say the Xiang and the Lijiang River share the same origination because of connecting the two rivers of the Lingqu Canal that it is located in Xing'an county, and 70 per centage of water in Lingqu flows in the Xiang and 30 percent flows in the Lijiang.

The river passes places such as , , and , Yongzhou, , Hengyang, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan, Changsha, , , and empties into Lake Dongting, where it connects to the Yangtze. The Xiang has 2,157 branches and covers 9,460,000 , and 8,530,000 km? are in Hunan .

Tributaries:
* The Xiao River flows into the Xiang near Changsha
* The Zheng River converges with the Xiang in Chengbei District , Hengyang

Deities

The river is said to be protected by two goddesses, the Xiang Consorts : Ehuang and Nüying .

They were the wives of the mystical ruler, . Unable to bear the pain of their husband's death, they committed suicide in this river. The spots on the dotted Xiang River bamboos , also known as Xiang Consorts Bamboo , are said to be the drops of the consorts. These bamboos are also known as Marked Bamboos or Tear Bamboos .

The people of the Warring States Period worshipped these Xiang Water Goddesses . The poet Qu Yuan wrote a poem called ''Ladies Xiang'' documented the songs of the rituals.

On June 14, 1919, young Mao Zedong found ''The Shian Kian Weekly Review'' to publicize Marxism theorem in Changsha.

The character Shi Xiangyun from the Chinese novel ''Dream of the Red Chamber'' takes the first character of her given name from this river.

Major cities along the river

*Hengyang
*Zhuzhou
*Xiangtan
*Changsha