SUNGARI RIVER

Wade-Giles Sung-hua Chiang, Pinyin Songhua Jiang river in Heilungkiang and Kirin provinces, Northeast China. The Sungari is the largest of the tributaries of the Amur River, which it joins below the Chinese town of T'ung-chiang, some distance above Khabarovsk in far eastern Russia. The Sungari rises in the Ch'ang-pai Mountains in the border area between Kirin and North Korea. Its upper course runs north through rugged country, after which it empties into the Manchurian Plain above the city of Chi-lin (Kirin). There the river has been dammed at Feng-man as part of a huge hydroelectric project, forming a large retention lake extending more than 100 miles (62 km) upstream. From Chi-lin the river flows northwest until, in the vicinity of Ta-an, it is joined by its chief tributary, the Nen (Nonni) River, which drains the northern Manchurian Plain. It then flows eastward through the city of Harbin (Ha-erh-pin), where it is joined by another northern tributary, the Hu-lan River, before passing between the southern end of the Lesser Khingan Range and the northern end of the eastern Manchurian mountain system at Chia-mu-ssu to emerge into the flat and marshy terrain of the Amur River valley. The Sungari, at least below Chi-lin, flows somewhat placidly. Frozen annually from late November until March, its flow varies greatly, being at its maximum in the summer, when the May floods from thawing snows in the mountains are followed by summer rains that last until August. Since the river gradient in the plain is very low, flooding is frequent. In some years, 1932 for example, floods caused great devastation. The Sungari, like the Nen, is an important waterway. It is navigable upstream as far as Harbin by steamships of 1,000 tons or more. Small river steamers can use the Nen as far as Tsitsihar and the Sungari itself as far as Chi-lin, while several of the other tributaries and the upper waters of the Sungari itself (as well as the Nen) are navigable by small craft. The total length of the Sungari is 1,197 miles (1,927 km), of which some 800 miles (1,300 km) are across the plain. The total drainage area of the river is 212,000 square miles (550,000 square km).