Chinese symbol for “river”
河流
hé liú
river; 条 (tiáo)
The closest CC-CEDICT match for river is 河流 (hé liú), defined as: river; 条 (tiáo).
Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.
Characters and stroke order
Other Chinese words for “river”
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 江 | jiāng | river; 条 (tiáo),道 (dào) |
| 川 | chuān | (bound form) river; creek |
| 水流 | shuǐ liú | river; stream |
| 江河 | jiāng hé | river |
| 水 | shuǐ | water; (after a name) ... River |
Related words
Other words that share a character with 河流.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 河道 | hé dào | river course; river channel |
| 运河 (運河) | yùn hé | canal |
| 河谷 | hé gǔ | river valley |
| 河水 | hé shuǐ | river water |
| 河口 | hé kǒu | estuary; the mouth of a river |
| 交流 | jiāo liú | to exchange; exchange |
| 流行 | liú xíng | (of a contagious disease etc) to spread; to propagate; (of a style of clothing, song etc) popular; fashionable |
| 主流 | zhǔ liú | main stream (of a river); fig. the essential point |
See also: Japanese symbol for “river”.
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.