What does the name of the Yangtze River mean?
Yangtze
The English name Yangtze derives from the Chinese name Yángzǐ Jiāng (listen), which refers to the lowest 435km (270mi) of the river between Nanjing and Shanghai. The whole river is known in China as Cháng Jiāng (listen; literally: "Long River").
Yangtze
The river was called Quian (江) and Quianshui (江水) by Marco Polo[27] and appeared on the earliest English maps as Kian or Kiam,[28][29] all recording dialects which preserved forms of the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 江 as Kæwng.[14] By the mid-19th century, these romanizations had standardized as Kiang; Dajiang, e.g., was rendered as "Ta-Kiang". "Keeang-Koo",[30] "Kyang Kew",[31] "Kian-ku",[32] and related names derived from mistaking the Chinese term for the mouth of the Yangtze (江口, pJiāngkǒu) as the name of the river itself.