The Longmen Grottoes stand along which river in China?

The Longmen Grottoes stand along the Yi River in Henan Province, China.

The grottoes occupy limestone cliffs on both sides of the Yi River near Luoyang. The river flows north between Longmenshan and Xiangshan, creating the natural setting that gave the site its name: the hills resemble a traditional Chinese gateway, or “Dragon’s Gate.”

Work began under the Northern Wei dynasty in 493 AD and continued through later dynasties, especially the Tang dynasty. Artists carved Buddhist statues and reliefs into a roughly one-kilometre stretch of cliff. The complex contains tens of thousands of images, thousands of inscriptions and numerous pagodas.

A common mix-up is to associate the site with the Yellow River because Luoyang lies in the Yellow River basin. The Yi is the river directly beside the grottoes; it is a north-flowing tributary of the Luo River. UNESCO added the Longmen Grottoes to its World Heritage List in 2000.