The Fen River drains the center of Shanxi Province, China. It originates in the Guancen Mountains of Ningwu County in northeast Shanxi, flows southeast into the basin of Taiyuan, and then south through the central valley of Shanxi before turning west to join the Yellow River west of Hejin. The Fen and the Wei Rivers are the two largest tributaries of the Yellow River. The river is long and drains an area of , 25.3% of Shanxi's area. The Fen River is the longest in Shanxi. It is also the second-longest tributary of the Yellow River. Within Taiyuan, the Fen runs from north to south; the prefecture includes one-seventh of the river's course. History Legend The Fen is usually identified with the said by Sima Qian and others to have flowed beside the home of the Yellow Emperor. The Discourses of the States states that the Ji was the home of the Yellow Emperor's clan before he fought the clan of Yandi (the "Flame Emperor"). Its name is identical with the surname of the royal family under the Zhou. Pulleybank argues, however, that the supposed "Ji River" could be a later invention as "there seems to be no record of a Ji River outside the myth" of the Yellow Emperor. Ancient The lower Fen was part of the core area of ancient China and held the capital of the state of Jin near Houma. The river nurtured the 2500-year-old Sanjin Civilization and has since been called the "Mother River of People" in Shanxi. In Taiyuan, the Fen River valley area has fertile water resource; for this reason, the Fen area has become the economic center of Shanxi province. There are two valleys of the south region of further south. One of the valleys is the Fen River valley, it had led to the Yellow River. The second valley is the Su River, which was along the north edge of Zhongtiao Mountain; and it was forming another triangular basin. The Fen River valley offered different routes of communication in Wei River valley, that both routes were open to the either side of the Yellow River. Modern Modern cities on or near the Fen from north to south are: Taiyuan, Linfen, Houma, Hejin. Fenyang, although named after the river, is actually some 20-plus km to the west of it. As with any river that flows through a city, the Fen River added