Welcome to the “wildest, wickedest river on earth”. So said author Pearl Buck when referring to the river known to Chinese as the Changjiang and to western people as the Yangtze or Yangzi. It's the only inland river in the world which can be explored by luxury cruise ship all year around!
with a winter flow rate of 4,000 cubic meters per second jumping to 35,000 m 3 /s in summer, she can be wicked indeed! The river even can rise 60 feet in 24 hours in the gorges during summer as flooding water flows from the many tributaries, large and small, reach the main river. The Yangtze used to be very changeable and unpredictable due to the shallow water and narrow channels in winter time, but now, it's much easier to navigate due to the Three Gorges dam project, which makes the river much deeper and the channel much safer than before.