[2][3] He figures prominently in the Chinese legend titled "Great Yu Controls the Waters" (大禹治水; Dà Yǔ zhì shuǐ).

[6] Historical linguist Axel Schuessler reconstructs the Old Chinese pronunciation of 禹 as *waʔ, and compares it to either Proto-Tibeto-Burman *was 'bee', 'honey', or Proto-Waic *wak 'insect' (further from Proto-Palaungic *ʋaːk).

[18][19][20] When Yu was a child, Emperor Yao enfeoffed Gun as lord of Chong, usually identified as the middle peak of Mount Song.

[citation needed] A separate legend of Yu's birth is attested in an excavated manuscript, the provenance of which is provisionally assigned to the Warring States period.

In this legend, Yu's mother became pregnant after consuming the grains of a Job's tears plant, and gave birth to him through her back after a three-year gestation period.

[24] During the reign of Emperor Yao, the Chinese heartland was frequently plagued by floods that prevented further economic and social development.

Collaborating with Hou Ji, a semi-mythical agricultural master, Yu successfully devised a system of flood controls that were crucial in establishing the prosperity of the Chinese heartland.

Instead of directly damming the rivers' flows, Yu constructed a system of irrigation canals which redirected flood water into fields, as well as expending a great effort to dredge the riverbeds.

[12] Yu is said to have eaten and slept with the common workers and spent most of his time personally assisting the work of dredging the silty beds of the rivers for the thirteen years the projects took to complete.

In particular, Mount Longmen along the Yellow River had a very narrow channel which blocked water from flowing freely east toward the ocean.

[26] Another local myth says that Yu created the Sanmenxia in the Yellow River by cutting a mountain ridge with a divine battle-axe to control flooding.

[33][34] According to the Bamboo Annals, Yu ruled the Xia Dynasty for forty-five years and, according to Yue Jueshu (越絕書), he died from an illness.

[35] There is no evidence suggesting the existence of Yu as a historical figure until several centuries after the invention of writing in China, during the Western Zhou dynasty—nearly a millennium after the traditional dating of his reign.

[citation needed] Archaeological evidence of a large outburst flood at Jishi Gorge on the Yellow River has been dated c. 1920 BC.

[40][dubious – discuss] Yu was long regarded as an ideal ruler and kind of philosopher king by the ancient Chinese.

[41] Owing to his involvement in China's mythical Great Flood, Yu also came to be regarded as a water deity in Taoism and Chinese folk religion.

[42] His personal name is written identically to a Chinese surname, a simplification of the minor polity of Yu (鄅國) in present-day Shandong.

Its people carried this lineage name forward after Yu was conquered by the state of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period.