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Yenisei (Енисе́й) is a river of Asia, which rises in two principal headstreams, the Bii-Khem (Бии-Хем) and the Kaa-Khem (Каа-Хем), on the plateau of NW Mongolia — the former on the S flank of the Sayan Mountains in 97° 30' E and 52° 20' N, and the latter in marshes a few miles W of Lake Kosso-gol.
They have a westerly course, but after uniting they turn N, through the Sayan Mountains in the wild gorge of Kemchik, in 92° E. Thence the river makes its way across the Alpine region that borders the Sayan Mountains on the N until it emerges upon the steppes at Sayansk (53° 10' N).
Augmented by the Abakan on the left and the Tuba on the right, it traverses the mining region of Minusinsk, approaches within 6 m. of the Chulyni, a tributary of the Ob, intersects the Trans-Siberian railway at Krasnoyarsk, and is joined first by the Kan and then by the Upper (Verkhnyaya) Tunguska or Angara, the Stony (Podkamennaya) Tunguska, and the Lower (Nizhnyaya) Tunguska, all from the right. The Yenisei continues north to the Arctic Ocean, joined on the left by the Zym, Turukhan and Ingarevka, and on the right by the Kureika and Daneshkina.
After the confluence of the Angara, the stream continues to widen out to 30 m., its bed being littered with islands until it breaks into its delta (225 km long). The length of the river is 4 102 km (2543 mi.), and the area of its watershed 2 580 000 km² (970,000 sq. m.) It is navigable as far up as Minusinsk, a distance of 3 013 km (1840 m.), and is free from ice on the average for 155 days at Turukhansk and for 196 days between May and November at Krasnoyarsk.
The Angara drains Lake Baikal, and is navigable from Irkutsk. Together with the Selenga, the main tributary of Lake Baikal, the Angara forms the longest headwater of the Yenisei. The length of the Yenisei-Angara system is 5550 km.
A canal connects the Great Kaz, a tributary of the Yenisei, with the Ket, an affluent of the Ob.
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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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