Three bedsets of typical palaeoflood slackwater deposits (SWDs) were identified in the Holocene loess-soil sequence at Yanjiapeng (YJP) sites along the banks of Yunxian County in the upper Hanjiang River during the detailed investigations. They were studied by field observations and laboratory analysis. These extreme flood events were dated to 1 000~900 a BP, 1 800~1 600 a BP and 3 200~2 800 a BP with the Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating in combination with the previously studies in the Hanjiang River. The palaeostages of these flood episodes were 176.20~176.73 m estimated with the elevations of the end-point of these SWDs. HEC-RAS model within an ArcGIS environment showed that the palaeoflood peak discharges ranged from 53 770 to 55 950 m³/s. The hydraulic parameters and the results were tested from different aspects. The results indicated that the palaeoflood peak discharges reconstructed by the HEC-RAS model were reliable and accurate. Besides, flood data series are extended to a 10 000year time scale established by a combination data of the gauged flood, historical flood and palaeoflood in the upper Hanjiang River, which provided the values of 59 100 m³/s and 45 200 m³/s for the 10 000 a and 1 000 a floods, respectively. This paper establishes a new way in hydrological reconstruction of upper Hanjiang River and is considerably significant in water resource management, flood mitigation and hydrological engineering.