The Yangtze River, the largest river of China, flows over 6 300 km from west to east, extending a drainage basin of 1,8 million square kilometers and concentrating more than 400 million people. The Yangtze basin stands as a good example of the " Three China " regional disparities, which means the level of development gradually rising and stretching out from the coastal regions to the inland regions. Facing with a challenge of territorial development, the Chinese State and the actors of spatial planning endeavor to confer to the Yangtze River the central function of giving balance to a fragmented territory, through the extension development from the delta regions to the inland regions, in order to strengthen central government power and the State unity. Will that "river-region" function ensure Yangtze River to become a transversal vector able to absorb regional economic disparities and to make a coherent basin? Focused on regional analysis, this piece of research intends to analyze the impact of the actors of spatial planning in China through the study of the regional planning of the Yangtze basin and its political, social and economic characteristics : hydraulic engineering works, urban region growth, industrial restructuring and development of the transportation network.
