HWANG-HO, the most northerly of China's great rivers, approximately 2,500 m. in length. The name, literally the "Yel low River," is due to the loess (hwang to or "yellow earth") which it carries in suspension and which it derives from the de posits stretching across the middle part of its basin. The Hwang ho flows through a region having a much lower rainfall than the Yangtze basin and its discharge is in consequence very much smaller. It pursues a very composite course. It rises in a marshy trough just west of the Tsaring-nor within the parallel ranges of the Kuen-Lun whose central and northern ranges it eventually cuts across before entering on the Ordos, an extension of the Gobi desert. The northern limit of the Ordos is defined by the mountain arc of the Ala-shan, Khara-narin-ula and Ta-tsing-shan, and the Hwang-ho, keeping on the inner side of this arc, occupies a much more open valley than in its upper course. Then the river which was heading eastwards for the "grill of Peking" (see