The Dragon Kings (Longwang) are the divine rulers of water in Chinese popular religion, of the seas, rivers, lakes, wells and rain. Chinese dragons (long) differ fundamentally from the malign dragons of European tradition: they are benevolent, auspicious, water-dwelling powers, and the Dragon Kings who command them are the gods to whom communities pray for rain in time of drought, and whom they petition, or blame, in time of flood.
Commonly reckoned as four, one for each of the seas of the four directions, with the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea the most prominent, they rule undersea crystal palaces and preside over their own aquatic bureaucracies of fish-and-shellfish officials, fitting the pattern by which the Chinese imagined the divine world as an administration. In an agricultural society their cult had great practical importance: temples to the Dragon King stood beside countless waterways, and rain-making rites addressed to them were a recurring feature of village religious life. They are stock characters, too, of popular fiction, notably Journey to the West.