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Although the Huang He flows through northern Henan, it serves the province poorly as a line of communication. Within the province it was navigable only in the Sanmen Gorge until the construction of the dam there. Even now it is useful over the plain only for small rivercraft. The Huai and its tributaries flowing down from the western mountains are rapid in their upper courses and silted in their lower, so that they too serve only small craft. The Wei of northeastern Henan, flowing north into the Hai system, has been joined by the People’s Victory Canal to the Huang He. In 1964–65 it was successfully dredged in an experiment aimed at deepening the riverbed and so increasing flow and reducing waterlogging.

Zhengzhou is at the junction of China’s two greatest trunk railways, the line running from Beijing to Guangzhou and the Longhai line, which runs from the east coast to Xinjiang, in the far northwest. Local railroads have also been developed, and most of the province’s goods are now carried by rail.

The first modern roads in Henan date from the famine of 1920–21, when the American Red Cross built earth tracks to bring relief to the stricken provinces. For years most road building was accomplished with little modern technology; however, the country’s major north-south express highway between Beijing and Zhuhai (adjacent to Macau) now bisects central Henan, and another passing east-west through the northern part of the province connects Kaifeng to Zhengzhou and Luoyang. Some roads penetrate into the more remote mountain region (e.g., a road in the Taihang Mountains between Huixian and Lingquan), and most of the other highways now have all-weather surfaces. Air travel is centred on Zhengzhou.