The Salween (Burmese: သံလွင်မြစ်; MLCTS: sam lwang mrac, IPA: [θàɴlwɪ̀ɴ mjɪʔ], also spelt Thanlwin; Mon:သာန်လာန်, [san lon]; *****: 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 *****an 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.