The Yea River, an inland perennial river of the Goulburn Broken catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the lower South Eastern Highlands bioregion and Northern Country/North Central regions of the Australian state of Victoria.

[3] The river is also crossed by the Goulburn Valley Highway, east of Yea.

The suspected Aboriginal Taungurung language name for the river is Kayigai, with no clearly defined meaning.

A surveyor's map of c. 1860 gives Kayigai or Muddy Creek, so it is likely that was the Aboriginal name of the river.

[2][4] The river, like the town is named in honour of Colonel Lacy Walter Yea – a British Army colonel killed during the Crimean War in 1855, the year that Yea was founded.