The story of the Great Flood plays a dramatic role in Chinese mythology, and its various versions present a number of examples of the flood myth motif around the world. Flood narratives in Chinese mythology share certain

Flood begins
It was during the reign of Emperor Yao that the Great Flood began, a flood so vast that no part of Yao's territory

The narrative of the Great Flood of prehistoric China may provide some insight into social development during this era. David Hawkes comments on the way that the various versions of the Gun-Yu story seem to contrast the relative success or failure, or at

• Lewis, Mark Edward (2006). The Flood Myths of Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-6663-6

Besides the motif of controlling the flood waters another motif is particularly characteristic of the Chinese Gun Yu flood myth, namely the

• 2350 BCE Middle East anomaly
• 4.2 kiloyear event (in 2200 BCE)
• Agriculture (Chinese mythology)

1. ^ Yang, An & Turner 2005, p. 74.
2. ^ Strassberg 2002.
3. ^ Wu et al. 2016.
4. ^ Christie 1968, pp. 83–91.