Chinese Hongze Hu or Hung-tse Hu
Lake, eastern China.
Located in the Huai River valley between Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, it was smaller in the 7th–10th centuries AD than its present surface area of 502 sq mi (1,300 sq km). In the 11th century, canals were constructed to make it part of a canal system between Kaifeng and Zhuzhou, joining the lake to the Huai. In 1194 the Huang He (Yellow River) changed course, forcing the waters of the Huai into the lake, which then grew to its present size. In the 19th century, flooding in the area was severe, and, in the 1930s, a new channel (improved in the 1950s) was dug from the lake's eastern shore directly to the sea.