{"id":99423,"date":"2026-04-21T13:05:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T07:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=99423"},"modified":"2026-04-21T13:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:07:13","slug":"salween-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/salween-river\/","title":{"rendered":"Salween River"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Salween River Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recent discoveries have indicated severe arsenic pollution along the Salween River, with unregulated mines in Myanmar, especially Shan State, being the prime suspects.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Salween River<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Salween River, also known as the <\/span><b>Nu River in China<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>Thanlwin River in Myanmar,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a <\/span><b>transboundary river in Asia<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, shared by <\/span><b>China, Thailand, and Myanmar.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Approximately <\/span><b>2400 km<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> long, it is the<\/span><b> longest undammed\/free-flowing river in mainland Southeast Asia.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Course<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Salween River <\/span><b>originates <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">approximately 4,000 m above sea level in the <\/span><b>Tibetan range of the eastern Himalayas.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The river <\/span><b>passes through western Yunnan, China, Myanmar, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and then forms the <\/span><b>border between Myanmar and Thailand <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">before it turns west and <\/span><b>drains into the Gulf of Martaban in the Andaman Sea.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>upstream portion<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the Salween f<\/span><b>lows in parallel with <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">two of <\/span><b>Asia\u2019s mightiest rivers, the Mekong and <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/key-facts-about-yangtze-river\/\" target=\"_blank\">the Yangtze<\/a>.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The location where <\/span><b>three gorges carved by these rivers come together<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 the <\/span><b>Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 was designated as a <\/span><b>World Heritage Site<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by the UN in 2003.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since Salween <\/span><b>flows primarily through rugged terrain with dangerous rapids<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> along its course, <\/span><b>only small parts<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the river<\/span><b> are navigable<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by large water vessels.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its <\/span><b>major economic use<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is in <\/span><b>floating teak logs from the forests of southeastern Myanmar to the sea.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More than 10 million people live in the Salween basin, and the river is home to more than a <\/span><b>dozen ethnic minorities<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Some of the major groups include the <\/span><b>Shan, Karen (or Kayin), Karenni <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(or\u00a0 Kayah),\u00a0 Wa,\u00a0 Lisu,\u00a0 Lahu,\u00a0 Kokang,\u00a0 Akha,\u00a0 and\u00a0 Hmong.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the Salween basin, there are over <\/span><b>200 species of fish, a third of which<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are f<\/span><b>ound nowhere else <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in the world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is believed to support over <\/span><b>25% of the world\u2019s and over 50% of China\u2019s animal species.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/etimes\/trending\/asias-longest-uninterrupted-river-poisoned-by-arsenic-what-is-the-reason-behind-the-contamination\/amp_articleshow\/130398429.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TOI<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Salween River is a transboundary river in Asia, shared by China, Thailand, and Myanmar. Read more about Salween River, Origin, Course, Length, Significance, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":99462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,7007,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-99423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-salween-river","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99423"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99490,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99423\/revisions\/99490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}