Salween River

The Salween (Burmese: သံလွင်မြစ်; MLCTS: sam lwang mrac, IPA: [θàɴlwɪ̀ɴ mjɪʔ], also spelt Thanlwin; Mon: သာန်လာန်, [san lon]; Tibetan: རྒྱལ་མོ་རྔུལ་ཆུ།, Wylie: rgyal mo rngul chu , Gyalmo Ngulchu; Chinese: 怒江; pinyin: Nù Jiāng, literally "Angry River" in Chinese — the river is actually named after the Nu people living in the area, but Chinese having no phonetic script had to use a character with a similar sound as Nu which happens to be the character for rage; Thai IPA: [mɛ̂ː náːm sǎːləwin], Mae Nam Salawin (Thai: แม่น้ำสาละวิน); is a river, about 2,815 kilometres (1,749 mi) long, that flows from the Tibetan Plateau into the Andaman Sea in Southeast Asia. It drains a narrow and mountainous watershed of 324,000 square kilometres (125,000 sq mi) that extends into the countries of China, Burma and Thailand. Steep canyon walls line the swift, powerful and undammed Salween, one of the longest free-flowing rivers in the world. Its extensive drainage basin supports a biodiversity comparable with the Mekong and is home to about 7 million people. In 2003, key parts of the mid-region watershed of the river were included within the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Salween (disambiguation)

Salween or Salawin is a river in Burma, Thailand and China

Salween may also refer to:

Places

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Salween (film)

Salween (Thai: มือปืน 2 สาละวิน, rtgs: Muepuen 2 Sarawin) is a 1994 Thai action-drama film directed by Chatrichalerm Yukol and starring Sorapong Chatree and Chatchai Plengpanich. Sombat Metanee's son, Siricoup Metanee, also stars as a young police lieutenant, newly arrived at a rough-and-tumble post in a Thai-Myanmar border town on the Salween River. The screenplay is co-written by Chatrichalerm and Stirling Silliphant.

Plot

A text scroll at the opening of the film gives some historical background about Myanmar (or Burma) being granted independence after World War II by the United Kingdom, without the problem of ethnic conflict with the Karen people on the country's border areas being resolved. So since then, the Burmese central government, then known as SLORC and the Karen National Liberation Army have been engaged in a war that is little known to outside people.

A Thai timber baron, Tweepong, exploits the situation by courting both the KNLA and SLORC in order to have the unrest continue while his company logs the teak forests in the border region of the Salween River.