In order to provide an estimation method and basis for the fish swimming ability and for the flow velocity design of fish passing facilities in the planning stage and feasibility stage, by searching the papers related to the swimming ability of Chinese Cyprinidae from the internationally recognized academic paper network database, we selected 115 and then compared them with the critical swimming speed, burst speed and total length as describing indexes by using software Origin 9.0. Results indicated:(1) The relationship between fish swimming speed and fish length is allometric rather than isometric. It is recommended that the power function can be used to fit the correlation between fish swimming speed and total length. (2) Based on the empirical formula and the covariance analysis, swimming ability of rheophilic Cyprinidae > swimming ability of semi-rheophilic Cyprinidae > swimming ability of limnophilic Cyprinidae. According to the Design code for fish passage facilities in hydropower projects in China, Guideline for fishway in water conservancy in China and literature references about fish passage facility design, as well as the empirical formula in this study, the flows for fish passing facilities in the planning and feasibility stages in southwest China and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were recommended as follows. In the southwest China, the attraction flow velocity range of the fish passing facility entrance with adult Schizothoracinae fishes as the target species is 0.61-0.76 m/s, and the maximum velocity of the passage and pool is 1.28 m/s. In the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the attraction flow velocity range of the fish passing facility entrance with adult four major Chinese carps as the target species is 0.76-0.93 m/s, and the maximum velocity of the passage and pool is 1.49 m/s. The attraction flow velocity range of the fish passing facility entrance with juvenile four major Chinese carps as the target species is 0.42-0.62 m/s, and the maximum velocity of the passage and pool is 0.82 m/s.