The Yarkand River is a river in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. It is one of the headstreams of the Tarim River. It is approximately 970 km (600 mi) in length, with an average discharge of 330 m3/s (12,000 cu ft/s).
The river originates in the Karakoram range in the south of the Kashgar Prefecture. A notable tributary of the upper Yarkand River is the Shaksgam River, which is also known in its lower course (before falling into the Yarkand) as the Keleqing River (Chinese: 克勒青河; pinyin: Kèlèqīng Hé).
A part of the river valley is known to the Kyrgyz people as Raskam, and the river itself is also called the Raskam River. The river is also known as the Zarafshan River. The area was once claimed by the ruler of Hunza.
Famous quotes containing the word river:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)