Wu River (Yangtze River)

Wu River (Wu Jiang)
Sancha, Yachi
River
Wu River
Name origin: Named for 12 peaks of Wu Mountain
Country	China
State	Guizhou
Municipality	Chongqing
Part of	Yangtze River system
Tributaries
- left	Furong River, Liuchong River
- right	Nanming River, Yu River (Hubei), Ya River
Cities	Wushan, Badong, Zigui
Source	Sancha
Mouth	Yangtze River
- location	Fuling, Eastern Chongqing Municipality
Length	1,150 km (715 mi)
Basin	80,300 km2 (31,004 sq mi)
Discharge	for Gongtan
- average	1,108 m3/s (39,129 cu ft/s)
- max	3,340 m3/s (117,951 cu ft/s)
- min	272 m3/s (9,606 cu ft/s)
Wujiang drainage basin

The Wu River (Chinese: 乌江; pinyin: Wū Jiāng) is the largest southern tributary of the Yangtze River. Nearly its entire length of 1,150 kilometres (710 mi) runs within the isolated, mountainous and ethnically diverse province of Guizhou. The river takes drainage from a 80,300-square-kilometre (31,000 sq mi) watershed.

The river flows through the Liupanshui, Anshun, Guiyang (the capital), Qiannan, and Zunyi Districts of Guizhou. All nine regions of the province have at least partial drainage to the river.

The river begins as the Sancha in western Guizhou and flows eastwards about 350 km (220 mi). It then bends north, west and south in a 300 km (190 mi) reach called the Yachi, and receives the Nanming River from the right. After the Yachi reach, the Wu makes a broad arc northeast through central Guizhou, picking up fifteen major tributaries including the Yu, Furong and Ya Rivers and flowing through several large hydroelectric dams. It then crosses the border into the provincial-level municipality of Chongqing, flows past Wushan, Badong and Zigui, and empties into the Yangtze River at Fuling, some 50 miles (80 km) east-northeast of Chongqing City, in the Wu Gorge of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze. Part of the lower course of the river is flooded by the reservoir of Three Gorges Dam.