The Mekong was originally called Mae Nam Khong from a contracted form of Tai shortened to Mae Khong. In Thai and Lao, Mae Nam ("Mother of Water[s]") is used for large rivers and Khong is the proper name referred to as … See more

The Mekong Basin can be divided into two parts: the "upper Mekong basin" in Tibet, and the "lower Mekong basin" from Yunnan downstream from … See more

The difficulty of navigating the river has meant that it has divided, rather than united, the people who live near it. The earliest known … See more

The Mekong basin is one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. Only the Amazon boasts a higher level of bio-diversity. Biota estimates for the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) include 20,000 plant species, 430 mammals, 1,200 birds, 800 reptiles and … See more

The Mekong rises as the Za Qu (Tibetan: རྫ་ཆུ་, Wylie: rDza chu, ZYPY: Za qu; Chinese: 扎曲; pinyin: Zā Qū) and soon becomes known as the … See more

The internal drainage patterns of the Mekong are unusual when compared to those of other large rivers. Most large river systems that drain the interiors of continents, such as the Amazon, Congo, and Mississippi, have relatively simple dendritic tributary … See more

Aquatic biodiversity in the Mekong River system is the second highest in the world after the Amazon. The Mekong boasts the most concentrated biodiversity per hectare of any river. The … See more