A report on Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Yellow River and North China

Hebei or, (alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China.

North China, or Huabei is a geographical region of China, consisting of the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia.

Hebei borders the provinces of Shanxi to the west, Henan to the south, Shandong to the southeast and Liaoning to the northeast, as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the north.

The western division is included in North China, with major cities including Baotou, Hohhot.

One of its older Mongolian names was the "Black River", because the river runs clear before it enters the Loess Plateau, but the current name of the river among Inner Mongolians is Ȟatan Gol (, "Queen River").

The main agricultural lands of China lay in the area known as the Central Plain, an area located bordered by the Yangtze river to its south and the Yellow River to its north.

Hebei Province is named so because it is located in the North China Plain, entirely north of the Yellow River.

During the Warring States period, King Wuling (340–295 BC) of the state of Zhao based in what is now Hebei and Shanxi Provinces pursued an expansionist policy towards the region.

These accounts show that after the river passed Luoyang, it flowed along the border between Shanxi and Henan Provinces, then continued along the border between Hebei and Shandong before emptying into Bohai Bay near present-day Tianjin.

Those in the eastern parts tend to speak Northeastern Mandarin, which belongs to the Mandarin group of dialects; those in the central parts, such as the Yellow River valley, speak varieties of Jin, another subdivision of Chinese, due to its proximity to other Jin-speaking areas in China such as the Shanxi province.

Since the development of fish ponds started in Xingyang's riverside Wangcun Town in 1986, the pond systems in Wangcun have grown to the total size of 15,000 mu (10 km2), making the town the largest aquaculture center in North China.