Rivers of the planet

Rivers are important in dividing nations, cities, wars, and counties. The border between Scotland and England was chosen as the River Tweed for centuries. Budapest the capital of Hungary is divided between Bud and pest, by the Danube. While the River Rhine helped to hold back the immense power of the Roman Empire. As well as division these valley rivers can be important regions with citizens as patriotic to their river region as many are to their nations. Following a path down a river can show you regional rivalries like that of such as that between Paris, and the provincial regions further downstream. 

Contents Records, Rivers of Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Asia. The Global Geography Gateway, - sites on this subject

Ten longest rivers in the planet

Longest Rivers of the World

Rank River Location Approximate Length—miles
1. Nile Africa 4,180
2. Amazon South America 3,912
3. Mississippi-Missouri-Red Rock United States 3,710
4. Yangtze Kiang China 3,602
5. Ob Russia 3,459
6. Huang Ho (Yellow) China 2,900
7. Yenisei Russia 2,800
8. Parana South America 2,795
9. Irtish Russia 2,758
10. Congo 2,716

World's 10 Tallest Waterfalls:

1 . Angel, Salto 3,212 feet Venezuela
2 . Tugela Falls 3,110 feet South Africa
3 . Tres Hermanas, Cataratas las 3,000 feet Peru
4 . Olo'upena Falls 2,953 feet USA
5 . Vinnufjellsfossen 2,822 feet Norway
6 . Balåifossen 2,788 feet Norway
7 . Pu'uka'oku Falls 2,756 feet USA
8 . Browne Falls 2,744 feet New Zealand
9 . Strupenfossen 2,690 feet Norway
10 . Ramnefjellsfossen 2,685 feet Norway

Highest river on planet: Yarlong Tsangpo River, 4km high.

Lowest river on planet The lowest point on earth is located on the surface of the Dead Sea. The Jordan river is the main river for the sea.

Europe

Rivers in Europe section Rhine, Danube, Volga, Dnieper, Thames. Siene, Tweed

River Rhine

1,320 kilometres (820 miles) long, the Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe. The name of the Rhine comes from the Celtic Renos, meaning that which flows.
The Rhine's begins in the Swiss Alps in the canton of Graubünden. The two initial tributaries are called Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein. The Vorderrhein springs from Lake Tuma. The Hinterrhein starts from the Paradies glacier near the Rheinquellhorn at the southern border of Switzerland. Both tributaries meet near Reichenau, still in Graubünden. The Rhine flows north as the Alpenrhein passing Chur and Liechtenstein and then Austria, and then emptying into Lake Constance. Emerging from Lake Constance, flowing west as the Hochrhein it passes the Rhine Falls and is joined by the Aare, which doubles its water discharge. It forms the border to Germany until it turns north at Rhine knee, Basel, as the Upper Rhine. It forms the southern part border between Germany and France in a wide valley, before entering Germany fully.

The Rhine is the longest river primarily within Germany. It is here the Rhine takes in some of its main tributaries, such as the Neckar, Main and the Moselle, which discharge of over 300 cubic meters per second.

Between Bingen and Bonn, the Middle Rhine flows through the Rhine Gorge. This gorge is deep, and the stretch of the river is known for its many castles and vineyards. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and known as "the romantic Rhine" with more than 40 castles and fortresses from the Middle Ages and wine-villages.

The ruhr is the most industrial section of the Rhine. The Ruhr river is clean, yet other rivers from the Ruhr area, above all the Emscher, produce pollution. The Rhine turns west into the Netherlands, where together with the Meuse it forms a delta. Crossing the border into the Netherlands at Spijk, the Rhine is at its widest, but the river then splits into three main distributaries: the IJssel, the Waal and the Nederrijn.

The largest cities of the Rhine are, Basel, Straßburg, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Ludwigshafen, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Koblenz, Bonn, Cologne 2.1m, Düsseldorf, Neuss, Krefeld, Duisburg, Arnhem / Arnheim. Dortmund is also on a tributary of the Rhine.

The Rhine was considered the border between the tribe of gaul and the Celtic tribes of Germany. The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest established the border of the Roman empire on the river Rhine. The French saw the Rhine as the natural border between Germany and France and tried to take the land to the west.

Danube

The Danube has a length of 2,888 km, and a Watershed area 817,000 km²
The Danube is Europe's second-longest river, after the Volga.

It rises from Germany's Black Forest as two smaller rivers – the Brigach and the Breg – joining at Donaueschingen, and it is from here that it is known as the Danube, flowing southeastwards for a distance of some 2850 km (1771 miles) before emptying into the Black Sea via the Danube Delta in Romania.

The Danube has been an important international waterway for centuries, as it remains today. Known to history as one of the boundaries of the Roman Empire, the river flows through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

 

The Danube flows through the following large cities:

Ulm - Germany
Ingolstadt - Germany
Regensburg - Germany, capital of Upper Palatinate
Passau - Germany
Linz - Austria, capital of Upper Austria
Krems - Austria
Vienna - capital of Austria, where the Danube floodplain is called the Lobau
Bratislava - capital of Slovakia
Budapest - capital of Hungary
Vukovar - Croatia
Novi Sad - capital of the Serbian-Montenegrin province of Vojvodina
Belgrade - the capital of Serbia and Montenegro
Drobeta-Turnu Severin - Romania
Vidin - Bulgaria
Ruse - Bulgaria
Braila - Romania
Galati - Romania
Tulcea - Romania

Budapest has over 1.7 million inhabitants, down from a mid-1980s peak of 2.1 million. Budapest became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube with the amalgamation in 1873 of right-bank Buda (Ofen in German) and Óbuda (Old Buda or Alt-Ofen) together with Pest on the left (east) bank. It is the seventh largest city in the European Union. Buda became the capitial of the region in the 14th Century. Although Pest is the area that grew the most during the nineteenth century.

While together Budapest had population of around 800,000 pest has most of this with around 600,000 people.

Volga river

The Volga river in Western Russia, is Europe's longest river, with a length of 3,690 km (2,293 miles).

Starting in the Valdai Hills 225 m (740 ft) above sea level north-west of Moscow and, 320 kilometres south-east of Saint Petersburg, the Volga heads east past Tver', Dubna, Yaroslavl, and Nizhny Novgorod. From there it turns south, flows past Tolyatti, Samara and Volgograd, and discharges into the Caspian Sea below Astrakhan at 28 metres below sea level. At its most strategic point, it bends toward the Don. Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is placed there.
Several old towns, such as Kalyazin and Mologa, were flooded by Soviet authorities in the 40s.The Volga has numerous tributaries, such as Kama, the Oka, the Vetluga, and the Sura rivers. The Volga and the Volga tributaries, form the Volga river system, draining an area of about 1.35 million square kilometres in the populous area of Russia. The Volga Delta is 160 kilometres and includes as many as 500 channels and smaller rivers. The Volga freezes for most of its length during three months a year.

The Volga drains most of Western Russia. Providing irrigation and hydroelectric power. The Moscow-Volga Canal, the Volga-Don Canal, and the Mariinsk Canal systems form navigable waterways connecting Moscow to the White Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. High levels of chemical pollution currently cause concern.

Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod are vital manufacturing cities on the banks of the Volga. During Soviet rule, Nizhny Novgorod was closed to foreigners. Other important cities on the river include Saratov, Kazan, Tolyatti, and Samara. Important cities on the Volga include Volgograd (Russia) population 1.5 million, Balakovo, Russia 205,600, Suar a histoic town on a Bulgarina tributary, Engels 185,000, Samara 1.5 million, Qasan an histoic ruined town of Bulgaria on the river, Zavolzhsk, population about 20,000.

The downtream of Volga was settelde by Hunns and other Turkic peoples in the 1 millennium AD, replacing Scythians, some major cities, such as Atil and Saqsin appeared. The volgo is also famous for the German community. Known as the the volgograd Germans. Many were forced out in WW2. .

The river basin played an important role in the movements of peoples from Asia to Europe. A powerful Volga Bulgaria once flourished where the Kama river joins the Volga.

Khazars were replaced by Kipchaks, Kimeks and Mongols. Mongols founded the Golden Horde in lower section of the Volga. Later thei Empire dissvolved to several khanates, subsiquently conquered by Russians from the 16th century.

In modern times, the city on the big bend of the Volga, Volgograd, witnessed the Battle of Stalingrad, the outcome of which was a major victory of the Soviet Union over Germany in World War II. The Russian people's feeling for the Volga finds echoes in songs and literature. Russia was, founded along the Volga, partly by Viking entrepreneurs using it as a road to the south from an entry point at or near Archangel.

Dnieper

The Dnieper River is a river 2,290 km length which flows from Russia through Belarus and then Ukraine.

The Dnieper finds its source in the Valday Hills of central Russia, and runs south eventually flowing to the Black Sea. 115 kilometres of its length serves as a natural border between Belarus and Ukraine. Approximately the last 800 kilometres of the river is a chain of nearly consecutive reservoirs.

Dams on the river are used for hydro electric power.

Important cities on the Dnieper Dorogobuzh, Russia
Smolensk, Russia
Orsha, Belarus
Šklou, Belarus
Mogilev, Belarus
Bychau, Belarus
Rahacou, Belarus
Dnieper River in Dorogobuzh.Žlobin, Belarus
Recyca, Belarus
Kiev (Kyiv), Ukraine
Kaniv, Ukraine
Cherkasy, Ukraine
Kremenchuk, Ukraine
Dniprodzerzhyns'k, Ukraine
Dnipropetrovs'k, Ukraine
Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine
Marhanets', Ukraine
Nikopol', Ukraine
Nova Kakhovka, Ukraine
Kherson, Ukraine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper

Thames

Length of river 346 km

Course
The Thames has a length of 346 km (215 miles). Its source (at Ordnance Survey grid reference ST 980 994) is about a mile north of the village of Kemble, near Cirencester in the Cotswolds; it then flows through Lechlade, Oxford, Abingdon, Wallingford, Reading, Henley-on-Thames, Marlow, Maidenhead, Windsor, Eton, Staines and Weybridge, before entering Greater London .

From the outskirts of Greater London, the river passes Syon House, Hampton Court, Kingston, Richmond and Kew before flowing through central London. In central London, the river forms one of the principal axes of the city, from the Palace of Westminster to the Tower of London. Once clear of central London, the river passes Greenwich and Dartford before entering the sea in a drowned estuary near Southend-on-Sea. The Thames is controlled by the port of London Authority.

The area to the west of London is normally called the Thames Valley, whilst east of Tower Bridge development agencies and Ministers have taken to using the term Thames Gateway. The city of London is main city of the thames. Mnay say the city was founed by the Romans as c rossing over the River Tham,es. From this the cpaital of the UK has become of the most important and famous cities on the planet. With a population of 7 million. In the eighites the GLC built a massive flood defence system across the river Thames to protect London from tidal waves. London can be vulerbale due to the waves rsing fuelling the north Sea into the English channel.

The Seine is the major river of north-western France, and a commercial waterways. It is also a tourist attraction, particularly within Paris.
The Seine starts near Dijon in northern France, flows through Paris and into the English Channel. Further downstream in what is now Normandy, the Seine was known as Rodo, or Roto, which is a traditional Celtic name for rivers, and is also the original name of the Rhône River.

The Seine is dredged regulary and ocean vessels can dock at Rouen, 120 km (75 miles) in land. Commercial riverboats can use the river from Bar-sur-Seine, 560 km (350 miles) from its mouth. At Paris, the river is only 24 metres (80 feet) above sea level, 445 km (277 miles) from its mouth, making it slow flowing and navigable.

The tidal river section, from Le Havre to beyond Rouen, is followed by a canalized section of the river up to Paris, with muerous locks to raise ships. Upstream many more locks allow ships to be raised.

Average depth of the Seine at Paris is eight metres. Until locks were installed to artificially raise the level in the 1800s, the river was shallow within the city. Today depth is controlled and the entire width of the river between the built-up banks on either side is normally filled with water.

The River Tweed (156 kilometres or 97 miles long) flows through the Borders region of Scotland. It rises on Tweedsmuir at Tweed's Well. It drains the whole Borders region. Its lower reaches mark the Scots England border for 27 kilometres near Berwick-upon-Tweed. The Tweed is one of the great Salmon rivers of Scotland.

Africa

Rivers covered in Africa section Senegal, Orange, Zambezi, Congo, Niger, Nile,

Sénégal River

The 1790 km long Sénégal River, in West Africa, forms the Senegal and Mauritania border.

Formed by the confluence of the Semefé and Bafing rivers. The Semefé and Bafing rivers both start in Guinea; the Bafing River flows through Mali and the Semefé is on the Malinese-Senegalese border.

The Senegal passes through Biffeche and the island on which the city of Saint-Louis, Senegal is located, then turns south. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a thin strip of sand called the Langue de Barbarie before it pours into the ocean itself. The river has two large dams, the Manantali Dam in Mali, and the Maka-Diama dam on the Mauritania-Senegal border. The Maka-Diama dam denies acces of salt water into the inner-country.

The Senegal River consists of a drainage basin of 483,181 km² and estimated annual discharge of 8 million km³.

Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania. founded the Organisation pour la mise en valeur du fleuve Sénégal (OMVS) in 1972 to manage the river. Guinea joined from 2005.

Orange River

The Orange River is the key river in South Africa. Starting in the Drakensberg mountains along the border between South Africa and Lesotho, 193 km from the Indian Ocean and 3000m high. In Lesotho the river is known as Senqu and parts freeze in winter. Downstream, it forms the international border between South Africa and Namibia.

The Orange River runs 2200km westwards, along the southern boundary of Free State and then through Cape Province, until it emptying into the Atlantic at Alexander Bay, about equidistant between Walvis Bay and Cape Town. About 33 km from the estuary, generally speaking, it is not navigable for long stretches at any point.

In the last 800 km of its course it receives intermittent streams and several large wadis lead into it.

In the dry season the volume of the water in the river reduces flow. With low rain further west, and high Evaporation, increasing in a westerly direction. However, in the wet season the Orange river becomes a torrent.

The river was discovered by Europeans in 1760, and named after the House of Orange of Holland in 1777-79.

From Lesotho to below the Van der Kloof Dam the river bed is incised. Further downstream the land is flatter, and under irrigation. The total catchment of the Orange River including the Vaal extends over 973 000 square km, about 77% of the land area of the RSA

The Orange River Project (ORP) was used to utilise run off from the river basin. The object of the project was to stabilise river flow the generation of hydro electric power to provide reliable water supply. Irrigation downstream of the Vanderkloof Dam, which has turned thousands of hectares of arid veld into highly productive agricultural land, was made possible by dams.

 

Zambezi
Basin countries Zambia, Congo, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique
Length 2,574 km
Source elevation 1,500 m
Watershed area 1,570,000 km
Zambezi is the fourth longest African river, and the largest flowing to the Indian Ocean. The area of its basin is 1,570,000 km², slightly less than half the Nile. The river has its source in Zambia and flows into Angola, along the border of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, to the mouth in Mozambique.

Zambezi's most famous feature is Victoria Falls, one of the world's largest waterfalls. The Zambezi is spanned by just five bridges at Chinyingi, Katima Mulilo, Victoria Falls, Chirundu and Tete.

There are two main sources of power on the river. These are the Kariba Dam, providing power to Zambia and Zimbabwe and the Cabora-Bassa in Mozambique which providing power to South Africa.

Congo River

Basin countries Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo
Length 4,670 km
Watershed area 3,680,000 km²
The Congo is the second longest river in Africa and eighth longest in the world. The river and its tributaries flow through the second largest rain forest area in the world. The river also has the second-largest flow in the world, behind the Amazon, and the second-largest watershed of any river, again trailing the Amazon, slightly ahead of the Mississippi. Because long sections of the river lie above and below the equator, its flow is stable. The Congo gets is named after the ancient Kingdom of Kongo.

The Congo is readily navigable, with railways now bypassing the three major falls. The trade of central Africa flows on it, including copper, palm oil, sugar, coffee, and cotton. The river is potentially valuable for hydroelectric power.

Niger River
The river starts in Guinea, then curves inland and finally reaches the ocean in Nigeria. The Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending over 2500 miles about 4000 km. runnning in a crescent through Guinea, Mali, Niger, on the border with Benin and then through Nigeria, discharging through a massive delta, known as the Oil Rivers, into the Gulf of Guinea. The Niger is the third longest river in Africa. Its main tributary is the Benue River.

The Niger takes unusual routes, a horseshoe shape that troubled European geographers for two millennia. Its source is just 150 miles, inland from the Atlantic Ocean, but the river goes away from the sea to the Sahara Desert, then turns right and heads southeast to the Gulf of Guinea.

Romans thought the river near Timbuktu was part of the Nile River, while early 17th-century European explorers thought it flowed west and joined the Senegal River. The true course was probably known to many locals, but Westerners only established it in the late 19th century.

This geography arrived about because the Niger River is two ancient rivers joined together. The upper Niger flowed from the source past the fabled trading city of Timbuktu, to the bend in the current river, and then into a now gone lake, while the lower Niger started in hills near that lake and flowed south into the Gulf of Guinea. As the Sahara dried up in 4000-1000 BC, the two rivers altered their courses and hooked up.

This unusual geography had made the northern part of the river, known as the Niger bend, an important business area.

Nile

There are two branches of the Nile: the White Nile, from equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile, from the Ethiopia mountians. Both branches formed on the western flanks of the East African Rift, which is on the southern half of the Great Rift Valley.
White Nile
Lake Victoria, which lies between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, is considered the source of the Nile, yet the lake itself has feeder rivers from other Great Lakes. In particular, the furthest back river of the Nile is the Ruvyironza River in Burundi, an upper branch of the Kagera. The Kagera flows for 690 km (429 miles) before reaching Lake Victoria.

Leaving Lake Victoria, the river is refferred Victoria Nile. It flows further for approximately 500 km (300 miles), through Lake Kyoga, until Lake Albert, Sudan, where it becomes known as the Bahr al Jebel. At the confluence with the Bahr el Ghazal, the river becomes known as the White Nile, from the clay suspended in its waters. From there, the river flows to Khartoum.

Blue Nile
Meanwhile, the Blue Nile springs from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian Highlands. The Blue Nile flows about 1,400 km (850 miles) to Khartoum, where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to form "the Nile." Most of the water carried by the Nile (about 80-85%) originates from Ethiopia, but this runoff happens only in summer, when the great rains fall on the Ethiopian Plateau; the rest of the year, the great rivers draining Ethiopia to the Nile flow weakly or are dry.

After the Blue and White Niles merge, the only remaining major tributary is the Atbara, which originates in Ethiopia north of Lake Tana, and is 800 km (500 miles). It joins the Nile approximately 300 km (200 miles) past Khartoum. The Nile is also unusual in that its last tributary, Atbara, joins it approximately halfway to the sea. From that point north, the Nile diminishes because of evaporation.

The Nile in Sudan is distinctive since it reverses course for much of its course, flowing back to the SW before returning to flow north to the sea. This is the "Great Bend of the Nile."
The Nile was the lifeline of the ancient Egyptian civilization, with most of the population and all of the cities of Egypt resting along those parts of the Nile valley lying north of Aswan.

The Nile has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture since the Stone Age. Climate change - or overgrazing - about 8000 BC desiccated pastoral lands of Egypt to form the Sahara, and tribes migrated to the river.

Despite the attempts of the Greeks and Romans, the source of the Nile was unknown until the 19th century, when John Hanning Speke was the first to identify it as Lake Victoria.

The Nile still supports alot of the population of Africans living along its banks, as well as Egyptians, the latter living between inhospitable regions of the Sahara Desert.
While most Egyptians still live in the Nile valley, the Aswan High Dam to provide hydroelectricity ended summer floods and their renewal of the fertile soil.

Cities on the Nile include Khartoum, Aswan, Luxor, and the Giza–Cairo conurbation.

 

North America Hudson , Mississippi (with Ohio and Tennessee), Pee Dee River, Saint Lawrence, Colorado, Colombia

The Hudson River, runs through New York State but partly forming the boundary with New Jersey. Early European settlement of the area clustered around the river. The area inspired the Hudson River School of painting, a sort of early American pastoral idyll.

The official source of the Hudson is Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack Mountains.

The Hudson is often mistaken as one of the largest rivers in the US, but it is an estuary throughout most of its length below Troy.

The Hudson is sometimes called a drowned river. The rising sea levels after the most recent ice age, have resulted in a marine incursion drowned the coastal plain and brought salt water above the mouth of the river. The deeply-eroded old riverbed beyond the current shoreline, Hudson , is a rich fishing area. The former riverbed is clearly delineated beneath the waters of the ocean, extending to the edge of the continental shelf.

Mississippi River 10 Biggest cities of the Mississippi basin

The Mississippi River, is the longest river in the US; the second-longest is the Missouri River, which flows into the Mississippi. Taken together, they form the largest river system in North America. If measured from the Missouri, the length of the Missouri/Mississippi combination is approximately 6,270 km 3,900 miles. The largest of many large tributaries on the river is the Ohio River.

With its source Lake Itasca at 1475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park, Minnesota, the river falls to 725 feet (220 m) just below Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis. The Mississippi is added to by the Illinois and the Missouri near Saint Louis, and by the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois. The Arkansas joins the Mississippi in Arkansas. The Atchafalaya River in Louisiana is a major distributary.

The Mississippi drains most of the USA between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains. It runs through, or borders, ten states in the United States Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles 160 km downstream from New Orleans. 2,320 miles (3733 km) in length.

The river is divided as the the upper Mississippi, from its source south to the Ohio River, and the lower Mississippi, from the Ohio to its mouth at New Orleans.

Locks and dams on the upper Mississippi, built in the 1930s, were designed to maintain a 2.7 m channel for commercial barge traffic. The lakes are used for recreational boating and fishing. The dams make the river deeper and wider but do not stop it. The Great Flood of 1993 is considered the most devastating flood to occur in the U.S. in modern history, withranking with the New Orleans 2005 flood.

Through natural processes known as deltaic switching the lower Mississippi River has shifted the final course every thousand years. This process has, over the past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance gulfward from 15 to 50 miles. Watershed area 2,980,000 km²

The river has many major tributuatues such as the ohio. The Ohio River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, 1,579 km (981 mi) long in the eastern United States.

Of great significance in the history of North America dating from the time of the Native Americans, the river was a primary transportation route during the westward expansion of the early U.S. It flows through or along the border of six states, and its watershed encompasses 14 states, including many of the states of the southeastern U.S. through its largest tributary, the Tennessee. During the eighteenth century it was the southern boundary of the Northwest Territory, thus serving as the border between free and slave territory.Pitsburgh is where the Allegheny and Monongahela River unite to form the ohio river. The ohio has a length og 1,579 km

Tennessee River
.The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 650 mi (1,046 km) long, and located in the southeastern United States, in the Tennessee Valley.
Bridgeport, Alabama
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Clifton, Tennessee
Crump, Tennessee
Decatur, Alabama
Florence, Alabama
Grand Rivers, Kentucky
Guntersville, Alabama
Harrison, Tennessee
Killen, Alabama
Knoxville, Tennessee
Lakesite, Tennessee
Langston, Alabama
Lenoir City, Tennessee
Loudon, Tennessee
New Johnsonville, Tennessee
Paducah, Kentucky
Redstone Arsenal, Alabama
Saltillo, Tennessee
Savannah, Tennessee
Sheffield, Alabama
Signal Mountain, Tennessee
South Pittsburg, Tennessee
Triana, Alabama
Waterloo, Alabama

Major cities on River and tributaries

Minneapolis, Minnesota
St. Paul, Minnesota
Davenport, Iowa
St. Louis, Missouri
Memphis, Tennessee
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana

 

The Colorado River is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately 2,330 km long, draining a part much of the arid regions on the south west Rocky Mountains. The natural course of the river flows into the Gulf of California, but heavy use of the river has desiccated the lower course of the river in Mexico so it no longer reaches sea.
The Colorado River's srarts in the Rocky Mountain National Park. The river's course follows the Kewuneeche Valley to Shadow Mountain Reservoir, near the town of Granby, then flows into Lake Granby. Once inside Utah, the river turns south, and goes through Arches National Park, then Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park, where it is met by one of its primary tributaries, the Green River. The river then flows into Lake Powell, formed by the Glen Canyon Dam. Below the dam, water released from the bottom of Lake Powell makes the river clear, clean, and cold. Just south of the town of Page, Arizona, the river forms the dramatic Horseshoe Bend, then at Lees Ferry is joined by another tributary, the warm, shallow, muddy Paria River, and begins its course through Marble Canyon.

The river then turns abruptly west directly on the folds and fault line of the plateau, through the famous Grand Canyon, which is 217 miles long (349 km) and from 4 to 20 miles wide 6 km to 30 km between the upper cliffs. The walls, 4000 to 6000 feet high (1200 m to 1800 m), drop in successive escarpments of 150 m to 490 m, banded in splendid colours, toward the gloomy narrow gorge of the present river.

From here the river flows through famous dams such as the famous Hoover dam to irrigate California. .

The lower course, which is the border between Baja California and Sonora, is a dry stream due to use of the river as a water source. Prior to the 20th century, the Colorado River Delta provided rich estuarine marshland now desiccated, but nonetheless is an important ecological resource.

The Niagara River flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It serves as a border between the Province of Ontario in Canada and New York State.

The river, is about 56 kilometres (35 miles) long and is most famous for the includes Niagara Falls along its course. The falls are thought to have moved upstream 11 kilometers (7 miles) in the last 12,000 years but modern diversion of the river for power generation has reduced the erosion. Shipping on the Great Lakes bypasses the Niagara River and Falls using a Welland Canal, part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.

The Pee Dee River, is a river in the Carolina states. Originating in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina, where its upper course above the mouth of the Uwharrie River is known as Yadkin River, and it extensively dammed for flood control and hydroelectric power. The lower river is named Pee Dee after the Native American tribe.

The largest lumber company in the world existed at the turn of the 20th century near the river's mouth in South Carolina. The virgin pine forests of the Pee Dee region were cut over and the logs floated in rafts downriver to be sawn into lumber and exported to the northern USA and Europe.

The main part of the Saint Lawrence River river runs approximately on the border of Canada connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It traverses the Canadian province of Quebec and forms much of the border between the state of New York in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada.

The Saint Lawrence River starts at the outflow of Lake Ontario at Kingston, Ontario. From here, it passes Brockville, Cornwall, Montreal, and Quebec City before entering the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the largest estuary in the world. It runs 3,058 kilometers 1,900 miles to the mouth (1,197 km or 744 miles from the outflow of Lake Ontario). Its drainage basin, which includes the Great Lakes and hence the world's largest system of fresh water lakes, has a size of 1.03 million km².

The river includes Lac Saint-Louis south of Montreal, Lac Saint-François in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec and Lac Saint-Pierre east of Montreal. It surrounds such islands as the Thousand Islands near Kingston, the Island of Montreal, Île Jésus, Île d'Orléans near Quebec City, and Anticosti Island north of the Gaspé.

The first European to navigate St. Lawrence was Jacques Cartier, on 9 June 1534. Until the early 1600s, the French used the name Rivière du Canada upstream to Montreal and the Ottawa River after Montreal. The Saint Lawrence River served as a route for exploration of the North American.

St. Lawrence was formerly navigable only as far as Montreal due to Lachine Rapids. Lachine Canal allowed ships to pass the rapids; the Saint Lawrence Seaway, an extensive system of canals and locks, permits ocean-going vessels to pass all the way to Lake Superior.

Columbia River

The Columbia River is a river situated in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is the largest river in volume flowing into the Pacific from North America, and the second largest by volume in North America behind the Mississippi. In rare years, the river's flow may actually exceed that of the Mississippi. The mean total flow is 4700 m3/s. It is the largest hydroelectric power producing river in North America. From its start to the Pacific Ocean it flows 1,232 miles, and drains 258,000 square miles.

 

Columbia Lake forms the Columbia in the Canadian Rockies of southern British Columbia. The river then flows through Windermere Lake and Invermere, then northwest to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake. The river then turns the "Big Bend" south through Revelstoke Lake and the Arrow Lakes to the BC–Washington border.

The river then flows through the east-central portion of Washington State. The last 300 miles (480 km) of the Columbia form the Washington-Oregon boundary. The river goes into the Pacific Ocean at Ilwaco, Washington and Astoria, Oregon forming the

Near the town of Hood River, Oregon, the river goes through the Cascade Mountains at the entrance to the Columbia River Gorge. The west side of the gorge is marked by Crown Point. Constant winds of 15 to 35 mph (25 to 55 km/h) blow through this wide straight gorge. It was here in Hood River County, Oregon that windsurfing was originated.

The River is the largest river in the world that has no delta.

South America in this section Amazon, and Paraná

Amazon River


At 6,387 km the Amazon River of South America is one of the two longest rivers on Earth, the other being the Nile in Africa. The Amazon has the greatest flow of any river, carrying more than the Mississippi, Nile, and Yangtze rivers combined. Its drainage area, called the Amazon Basin, is the largest of any river system at a Watershed area 6,915,000 km² .

The Amazon is responsible for a fifth of the volume of fresh water entering the oceans worldwide.

The main river is navigable for ocean steamers to Manaus, 1,500 km more than 900 miles upriver from the mouth. Smaller ocean vessels of 3,000 tons and 5.5 m draft can reach as far as Iquitos, 3,600 km 2,250 miles from the sea. Smaller riverboats can reach 780 km higher as far as Achual Point.

The Amazon drains an area of 6,915,000km² (2,722,000 mile²), 40 percent of South America. Its most remote sources are found on the inter-Andean plateau, just a short distance from the Pacific Ocean.

The ultimate starting point of of the Amazon was only recently established as a stream on a 5,597 metre (18,363 ft) peak called Nevado Mismi in the Peruvian Andes, 160 km west of Lake Titicaca.

After the merging of Río Apurímac and Ucayali, the river leaves Andean terrain and is surrounded by flood plain. From this point to the Marañón fro nearly about 1600km, the forested banks are just out of water, and are inundated long before the river reaches maximum. The low river banks are interrupted by only a few hills, and the river enters the Amazon Rainforest.

It also includes the ocean frontage of Marajó, an island about the size of Denmark lying in the mouth of the Amazon. It is the largest island to be surrounded by fresh water island.

The Paraná River is a river in southern central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina over 2,570 kilometers (1,600 miles). This length increases to 3,998 km (2,484 miles) if the tributary Paranaiba River in Brazil is counted.

For the next approximately 190 km (118 miles) the Paraná flows south and forms a border between Paraguay and Brazil until merging with the Iguaçu.
Across the river is downtown Posadas, Argentina.After merging with the Iguaçu, the Paraná then becomes the natural border between Paraguay and Argentina. The river continues its general southerly course for about 468 km (291 miles) before making a gradual turn to the west for another 820 km (510 miles) before reaching the Paraguay River, the largest tributary along the river. From the merging with the Paraguay River, the Paraná again turns to the south for 820 km (510 miles) through Argentina, making a slow turn back to the east near the city of Rosario for the final stretch of less than 500 km (311 miles) before merging with the Uruguay River to form the Río de la Plata and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Asia in this section Ob, Irtysh, Yarlong Tsangpo, Amur, Yangste, Yellow, Indus, Ganges,

Ob is a river of West Siberia, Russia, the country's fourth longest.

It is formed 8 mi. south west of Biysk in Altai Krai, by the joining of the to rivers Biya and the Katun. Both these streams have their origin in the Altai Mountains, the former issuing from Lake Teletskoye, the latter, 80 m. long, bursting out of a glacier on Mount Byelukha. The Ob turns west and north ireregualry until it reaches 55° N, when it curves round to the north west, and then north, wheeling finally east into the Gulf of Ob, a deep bay of the Kara Sea of the Arctic Ocean. The river splits up into more than one arm, especially after joining the large river Irtysh in 69° E. Originating in China, Irtysh is actually longer than Ob to their confluence. From the start of Irtysh to the mouth of Ob, the Ob-Irtysh river flow is the longest in Russia at 5410 km. Other tributaries are: from the east, the Tom, the Chulym, the Ket, the Tym and the Vakh; and, from the west and south, the Vasyugan, the Irtysh, and the Sosva.

Irtysh

Irtysh a river in Central Asia, main tributary of the river Ob. It is actually longer than the Ob. Irtysh's main affluent is Tobol River. The Ob-Irtysh form a major basin in Asia, encompassingthe vast majority of Western Siberia and the Altai mountains.

From its source as Kara-Irtysh (Black Irtysh) in the Mongolian Altai mountains in Xinjiang, China, Irtysh flows NW through Lake Zaysan, Kazakhstan until it meets the Ob near Khanty-Mansiysk in western Siberia, Russia after 4,248 km (2,640 mi).

Passenger, freight boats and tankers navigate the river between April and October, when it is not frozen. Omsk is home to the headquarters of the state-owned Irtysh River Shipping Company, and the largest river port in Western Siberia. Major hydroelectric plants at Ust-Kamenogorsk and Bakhtarminsk use the Irtysh near the Kazakhstan Chinese border. An Irtysh-Karaganda irrigation canal supplies water to the dry Kazakstani Steppes. The river banks were occupied by Chinese, Kalmyks, and Mongols until the Russians arrived in the late 16th century. The Russian conquest of the Irtysh basin was completed by the early 19th century.

The main cities on the Irtysh, from source to mouth, are:

in Kazakhstan: Öskemen/Ust-Kamenogorsk, Semey/Semipalatinsk, Pavlodar.
in Russia: Omsk, Tara, Tobolsk, Khanty-Mansiysk.

Yarlong Tsangpo River, originating from a glacier on the northern Himalayas, is the highest river on earth with an average altitude of 4,000 meters. It flows into India, and is then known as Brahmaputra. The river is the largest river in Tibet and the sixth longest in China. It makes a very sharp turn when it meets snow capped Mt. Namcha Barwa, which soars 7,782 meters (25,525 feet) up to the sky and stays in clouds. The turn is so sharp that it forms a gorge three times as deep as and more spectacular than the Grand Canyon of Colorado. And is the largest canyon on the planet.

Amur
The Amur River is one of the world’s ten longest rivers, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Manchuria. In historical references these two geopolitical entities are known as Inner Manchuria; and Outer Manchuria Russian Manchuria, respectively. The Chinese province of Heilongjiang on the south of the river is named after it, as is the Russian Amur Oblast on the north bank.

The Amur River is a very important symbol of Chinese-Russian relations. The Amur was important in the period of time following Sino-Soviet political split in the 1960s.

The economy of the Amur Basin has manufacturing, metallurgy, iron mining, non-ferrous metals, gold, coal, hydroelectricity, wheat, millet, fishing, timber and Chinese-Russian trade. The Daqing oilfield, which is the world's 4th-largest oilfield, is located near Daqing City in Heilongjiang, a few hundred kilometers afar the river.

Flowing across northeast Asia for over 4400 km, from the mountains of northeastern China to the Sea of Okhotsk, it drains a remarkable watershed that includes diverse landscapes of desert, steppe, tundra, and taiga, emptying into the Pacific Ocean through the Tartar Strait.

The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and the third longest in the world after the Amazon in South America and the Nile in Africa. The river is about 6,380 km long and flows from its source in west China (Qinghai Province) eastwards into the East China Sea. It has traditionally been considered a dividing point between northern and southern China, although the Huai River also shares the claim.

 

Hai He

The Hai River, previously called Pei Ho, is a river in China which flows through Beijing and Tianjin into Bohai Gulf of the Yellow Sea. It is 1,329 km long. Its basin has an area of approximately 319,000 km² 123,000 square miles. Its annual flow is only half of the Yellow River or one-thirtieth that of the Yangtze River.

At Tianjin, through the Grand Canal, the Hai connects with the Yellow and Yangtze rivers.

Like the Yellow River, the Hai is muddy because of the powdery soil through which it flows.

The Yellow River, is 4,700 km long and is the second longest river in China, after the Yangtze.

The start of the Yellow River is the Kunlun Mountains in north-western Qinghai province, where the river originates at 4,500 m in the Yueguzonglie Basin located on the northern slope of the Bayankara Mountains in Tibetan Plateau. From its source, the river flows eastw, bends northwest, and then flows east again until it reaches Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu, where its Great Northern Bend starts, extends north through the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region into Inner Mongolia.

The river turns then to flow almost straight to the south, forming the border between the Provinces of Shaanxi and Shanxi.130 km northeast of Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, the Yellow River turns again to flow east. It reaches the coastal lowlands of Eastern China near the town of Kaifeng and flows through them towards its mouth in northeastern direction and empties into Bohai. It drains 944,970 km² (364,417 square miles).

 

Indus River
The Indus or the Sengge Chu flows from Tibet into Ladakh and Baltistan, finally arriving into Pakistan, is the principal river of Pakistan. Before the partition of India into the modern states of India and Pakistan in 1947, Indus was second only to the Ganges in terms of cultural and commercial importance for the region of India, and the name India is derived from the root of the river's name. The river originates from Tibet, flowing from Himalayan miountains in a north-westernly direction through Kashmir, and then turns south for nearly the entire length of Pakistan. Figures for the total length of the river vary between 2900 and 3200 km. The Indus Valley Civilization had some of the earliest urban settlement in the world.

Ganges River
Mouth: Bay of Bengal
Basin: countries India, Bangladesh
Source elevation: 7,756 m
Watershed area: 907,000 km²
The Ganges River is the major river in north India and Bangladesh. The river has a history of reverence in India and is often called the 'holy Ganga'. Originating in Bhagirathi from the Gangotri Glacier in the Uttaranchal Himalayas. Bhagirathi joins Alaknanda near Deoprayag to form the Ganga. Then the Ganga flows across the large plains of North India called the Gangetic Plains and empties into the Bay of Bengal after dividing up into many distributaries. The length of the river is about 2,510 km. One of the densest human population belts on earth is around the Ganga. The river also has the longest river bridge in the planet.

The region encompassing the delta near the Bay of Bengal coast is known as The Sundarbans.

About one in every 12 people in the world live in its catchment area. However, due to this incredible concentration of population, pollution and destruction of habitats is increasing.

A major tributary of the river is the The Yamuna River, and nearly as sacred to india, and their confluence is near what is the site of the traditional holy Hindu city of Prayag, now known as Allahabad.

Some miss spellings of some rivers, which can be corrected by seeing above, include Danub, Rhin, Amzon, tems, gangs, Gangys, and the many possible miss spellings for Misissippi or Missisippi or Mississipi or Mississississippi

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The largest Oxbow Lake in North America is Lake Chicot in Arkansas, on the Mississippi Rver,