Yangtze River: China's golden waterway

The 6380 km long Yangtze River is the longest in China and third longest in the world. With more than 3600 branches it provides a total of 65 000 km of waterways, over half of the country's inland navigation network. This paper describes China's ‘golden waterway’ and its huge national and regional economic benefits. It reports on the recent channel improvement projects on the trunk line, including the Three Gorges dam and major estuary works, which have significantly increased both reliability and capacity – and resulted in a direct stimulus to economic growth. A further £4 billion of improvements are now planned.