The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and third longest in the world after the Nile and the Amazon. It flows generally south through Sichuan into Yuanan then northeast and east across central China through Sichuan, Hubei, Auhui, and Juangsu provinces to its mouth, 3,720 miles, in the East China Sea north of Shanghai.
The river has over 700 tributaries but the principal tributaries are the Hun, Yalong, Jialing, Min, Tuo Jiang, and Wu Jiang. The climate ranges from 96 degrees in the summer to cold, brisk temperatures in the winter.