Ancient China Geography Research Paper

Arguably some of China’s most important Geographic sights were the two rivers the Yellow river in the north and the Yangtze river in the south. The Yellow River, mostly referred to as “the cradle of Chinese civilization” or “the Huang He River” stretches 3,395 miles long making this river the sixth longest river in the world. The Yangzte River, just South of the Yellow river stretches an impressive 3,988 miles making it the third longest river in the world. Just like the Yellow River the Yangtze River Flows in the same direction [west to east] and played an important part in the rise of ancient China. Many farmers who lived by the river took advantage of the rainy weather and warm climate by using it to grow rice. Later on this land became

one of the most important and wealthy pieces of land in all of ancient China. This river also served as a divisor because of it's mountainous size, width, and difficulty to cross between northern and southern Asia. This infamous River was the destination of the famous battle of red cliffs. Some other geographical features of ancient china are the Himalaya mountains and the two deserts the Gobi desert to the North of ancient china and the Taklamakan desert to the west. These deserts were important because they blocked out foreigners and provided a border for the Chinese. But the Mongolians lived in the Gobi deserts and constantly attacked and assaulted the cities of northern china. This is why the Qin dynasty started to build and the Ming dynasty followed building much of the wall we know today as the great wall of china. Many people who worked on the wall were either peasants, criminals or slaves who were chosen to be punished by the emperor. It is estimated that millions of people worked on the wall for thousands of years. Many scientists believe that about a million people died in the process of building the wall. The wall had many cool features like watch towers, beacon towers to send signals and a estimated one million soldiers guarding the walls and towers. There are also houses built along the wall so soldiers can quickly attend if there is a large attack.