Red River

English

Etymology 1

From their appearance, usually owing to the color of the silt in their waters.

Proper noun

Red River

1. Various rivers around the world

Derived terms

• Red River County
• Red River Parish

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “calque of French fleuve Rouge?”)

Proper noun

Red River

1. A river in northern Vietnam and Yunnan, southern China.
   • 1990 February 20, “SCIENCE WATCH; How Indochina Moved”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 May 2015, Section C, page 13‎^[2]:

     They have also identified the fault in the earth's crust along which this motion took place. It is a belt of severely altered rocks more than 600 miles long, from Tibet to the Gulf of Tonkin. The Red River, which flows from China across Vietnam into the gulf, follows this zone.

   • 2011, Li Tana, “The Tongking Gulf Through History: A Geopolitical Overview”, in Nola Cooke, Li Tana, James A. Anderson, editors, The Tongking Gulf Through History‎^[3], Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 5:

     Thanks to the Red River, the principal watercourse that disgorges into the gulf, the coastal region has long enjoyed a navigable connection to the foothills of the gulf's mountainous hinterland (modern Laos, northern Vietnam, and Yunnan) and to the peoples of the region and the valuable local products that historically flowed downriver from them to the sea.

Synonyms

• Hong He
• Yuan River, Yuan Jiang, Yuan Shui
• Song Hong

Translations

the Red River of Yunnan in southern China and of northern Vietnam

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 紅河 / 红河 (zh) (hónghé), 元江 (zh) (Yuán Jiāng)

• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: Punainenjoki
• French: Fleuve Rouge m
• German: Roter Fluss m
• Hungarian: Vörös-folyó (hu)
• Portuguese: Rio Vermelho (pt) m
• Spanish: río Rojo m
• Vietnamese: Sông Hồng

Further reading

• “Red River”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• Red River at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
• “Red River, pn.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “Red River”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “Red River” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.
• Saul B. Cohen, editor (1998), “Red River or Song Col”, in The Columbia Gazetteer of the World‎^[4], volume 3, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 2586, column 1