US River Map

About US River Map

Explore the United States map featuring all major rivers and lakes, along with the US capital, Washington, D.C..The map also displays all 50 states with their boundaries, including Alaska and Hawaii shown as insets. Neighboring countries, Canada and Mexico, are also marked on the map.

Major Rivers of the United States Shown on the US River Map

The Missouri River: America's Longest Waterway

The Missouri River is the longest river in the US. It flows 2,341 miles from its source in the Rocky Mountains of Montana to where it meets the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri. The Missouri River is one of the most important rivers in North America. It drains about 529,350 square miles across ten states and has a lot of sediment in it, which is why it was once called the "Big Muddy." Three Forks, Montana, is where the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers meet. The river flows mostly east and south through the Great Plains.

The Missouri River has been very important in American history. In the 19th century, it was the main way for people to move west. During their famous expedition from 1804 to 1806, Lewis and Clark followed this river. They mapped a lot of the western land and set up trade with Native American tribes. The river system now supports an agricultural economy worth billions of dollars. Its floodplains grow corn, soybeans, and wheat that feed a large part of the country. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the river's six main-stem dams between 1937 and 1963. They make about 9.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year and help control floods and make navigation easier.

The Mississippi River: The Father of Waters

The Mississippi River is the second-longest river in the United States. It runs 2,340 miles from its source at Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its delta in the Gulf of Mexico. It is also the main river in America's inland waterway system. This huge river flows through 1.2 million square miles, which includes parts or all of 32 states and two Canadian provinces. It is the fourth-longest river system in the world. The Mississippi's watershed covers about 40% of the contiguous United States. It collects water from places as far east as New York and as far west as Montana.

The Mississippi River is very important to the economy because it moves about 500 million tons of goods worth more than $100 billion every year. The river supports agricultural exports from 33 states. It carries 60% of all U.S. grain exports, 22% of oil and gas shipments, and 20% of coal that is sent to power plants and steel mills. There are 29 locks and dams on the upper Mississippi River that keep a 9-foot shipping channel open from Minneapolis to St. Louis. This lets barges carry goods at a much lower cost than rail or truck transport. The delta area of the river produces 16% of all the seafood eaten in the US and is home to more than 2 million waterfowl that migrate along the Mississippi Flyway.

The Yukon River: Alaska's Lifeline

The Yukon River starts in British Columbia, Canada, and flows through Alaska to the Bering Sea. It is the third-longest river in the United States and the longest in Alaska. This long river flows through some of North America's most untouched and remote areas, draining 330,000 square miles of wilderness. The river's name comes from the Gwich'in word "Yu-kun-ah," which means "great river." This shows how important it has been to the native people who have lived along its banks for thousands of years.

The Yukon River is an important way for isolated Alaskan settlements to get around. Most of these settlements can only be reached by air or boat. During the summer, barges bring important things like gas, food, and building materials to settlements along the river. In the winter, the river freezes over completely, making an ice road that makes it easier for people to move around on land for many months each year. The Yukon River's salmon flows are important for both Native Alaskan communities and commercial fishing businesses, but climate change and development pressures have had a big impact on salmon populations in the last few decades. The flow of the river changes a lot with the seasons. In the winter, it can drop to around 15,000 cubic feet per second, and in the spring, it can rise to over 400,000 cubic feet per second.

The Rio Grande: International Boundary River

The Rio Grande flows 1,759 miles from the San Juan Mountains in Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. For 1,254 miles of its length, it forms a natural border between the United States and Mexico. This river system drains 182,200 square miles in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, but a lot of its water is used for farming, city water supplies, and industrial purposes before it even gets to the Gulf. Over the past hundred years, the river's flow has dropped a lot because of a lot of water diversions, dam building, and long periods of drought.

One of the hardest legal and diplomatic problems in the American Southwest is figuring out who has the right to water and how to divide it up along the Rio Grande. The Rio Grande Compact of 1938 divides water between Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Mexico's water sharing is controlled by international treaties. The Rio Grande Valley has 2 million acres of irrigated farmland that grows cotton, pecans, citrus fruits, and vegetables that bring in billions of dollars to the local economies. However, climate change and over-allocation have made the environment much harder to deal with. For example, some parts of the river completely dry up during dry spells. The Rio Grande bosque is a unique type of riparian forest that is home to more than 500 bird species and is an important wildlife corridor through dry areas.

The Colorado River: Carved the Grand Canyon

The Colorado River starts in the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and flows 1,450 miles to its delta in the Gulf of California. However, because of water diversions, the river rarely reaches the sea these days. This river system drains 246,000 square miles in seven states and two Mexican states. It is the main source of water for more than 40 million people in the southwestern United States. The Colorado River has carved out some of the most beautiful places in the United States, like the Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, and Cataract Canyon.

Hoover Dam, which makes Lake Mead, and Glen Canyon Dam, which makes Lake Powell, are two of the biggest dams and reservoirs in the United States. They are both part of the Colorado River system. These facilities make about 12 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year and also store water and control floods. But the river is facing problems it has never faced before because of a long drought and too much water being given out. Water levels in major reservoirs are at record lows. Lake Mead, the biggest reservoir in the US, is now only 27% full as of 2023. This led to the first-ever federal water shortage declaration and required cuts to water deliveries. The river supports a recreational economy worth more than $26 billion a year. Millions of people come to the river to fish, raft, and do other water-based activities.

The Arkansas River: From Mountains to Plains

The Arkansas River is the sixth-longest river in the United States. It flows 1,443 miles from its headwaters in the Sawatch Range of Colorado to where it meets the Mississippi River in Arkansas. The river flows through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, draining 160,500 square miles. It goes through many different ecosystems, from alpine meadows to prairie grasslands to hardwood forests. The Arkansas River was very important for westward expansion because it was a major transportation route and the southern border of the Louisiana Purchase.

The Arkansas River Navigation System, finished in 1970, has 17 locks and dams that let commercial barges travel from the river's mouth to the Port of Catoosa in Oklahoma, which is 445 miles inland. This system moves about 10 million tons of goods each year, such as agricultural products, oil, and goods that have been made. The river supports a lot of irrigated farming, especially in Colorado and Kansas, where center-pivot irrigation systems take water for growing corn, wheat, and soybeans. The Arkansas River is also home to many endangered species, such as the Arkansas River shiner and the least tern. It is also a great place to fish for trout, bass, and catfish.

The Columbia River: Pacific Northwest Powerhouse

The Columbia River flows 1,243 miles from its source in British Columbia to its mouth in Oregon, where it meets the Pacific Ocean. It drains 258,000 square miles across seven states and one Canadian province. This river system makes more hydroelectric power than any other river in North America. It has 31 dams that make about 44% of the country's hydroelectric energy. The Columbia River is the biggest river by volume that flows into the Pacific Ocean from North America. It has an average flow of 265,000 cubic feet per second.

The Columbia River has one of the most important salmon runs in the world, but building dams has had a big effect on fish populations. Salmon can get to their spawning grounds by using fish ladders and other measures, but their numbers are still much lower than they used to be. The river system carries about 40 million tons of cargo every year, making it a very important route for shipping agricultural goods from the interior Pacific Northwest. Wheat, corn, and soybeans grown in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho are shipped down the Columbia River to ships that go to other countries to sell them. The river also supports a thriving recreational economy, with fishing, boating, and windsurfing bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars to the area.

The Red River: Southern Border Waterway

The Red River starts in the Texas Panhandle and flows 1,125 miles to where it meets the Mississippi River in Louisiana. For most of its length, it is the border between Texas and Oklahoma. The river flows through four states and drains an area of 65,590 square miles. The red sediment that gives the waterway its name is what makes it unique. The sediment load, which is mostly made up of iron oxide and clay particles, makes the river's floodplain fertile alluvial soils that are good for farming.

There have been a lot of changes to the Red River to make it easier to navigate and less likely to flood. For example, there are now several locks and dams that keep a 9-foot shipping channel open from the Mississippi River to Shreveport, Louisiana. The river system supports commercial shipping that carries agricultural goods, timber, and oil products worth more than $3 billion a year. The Red River is also very important for flood control. A series of reservoirs and levees keep communities safe from floods that happen from time to time. Climate change has a big effect on the flow of the Red River. For example, recent droughts have made the flow drop to dangerous levels, and extreme weather events can cause floods that destroy everything in their path.

The Snake River: Northwestern Wilderness Waterway

The Snake River starts in Yellowstone National Park and flows 1,078 miles to where it meets the Columbia River in Washington state. It drains 108,000 square miles across six states. The river cuts through some of the toughest land in the United States, like Hells Canyon, which is the deepest river gorge in North America at 7,993 feet deep. The Clearwater, Salmon, and Boise rivers are important tributaries of the Snake River system. Each of these rivers has its own ecosystem and human community.

The Snake River has a lot of hard work to do to balance making electricity, meeting irrigation needs, controlling floods, and protecting fish habitats. The 15 big dams on the river make a lot of electricity and allow farmers in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to water over 4 million acres of land. But these same dams have hurt the populations of salmon and steelhead, which has led to ongoing debates about whether to take them down and restore their habitats. The Snake River Plain aquifer, which gets some of its water from rivers, supplies water for farms and cities in southern Idaho. Recent work has focused on making it easier for fish to get through, restoring riparian habitats, and managing water resources to balance the needs of different groups in a region where water is becoming more scarce.

The Ohio River: Gateway to the West

The Ohio River is 979 miles long. It starts where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and ends where it flows into the Mississippi River in Cairo, Illinois. The river flows through 14 states and covers 204,000 square miles, making it the Mississippi River system's biggest tributary by volume. The Ohio River has always been a natural border between the free states of the North and the slave states of the South. Enslaved people seeking freedom through the Underground Railroad called it "River Jordan."

The Ohio River system moves more commercial goods than any other waterway in the US, except for the Mississippi River. It moves over 230 million tons of freight worth about $70 billion each year. The river has a system of 20 locks and dams that keep a 9-foot shipping channel open from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi River. This lets commercial barges travel all year long. The Ohio River carries the most coal, which makes up about 70% of all tonnage. After that come petroleum products, agricultural goods, and manufactured goods. The river gives drinking water to more than 5 million people in six states and supports a wide range of recreational activities, such as fishing, boating, and tourism, which bring billions of dollars to the economies of the areas around it. Along the Ohio River valley, industrial growth has made one of the most important manufacturing corridors in the United States. However, river management still has to deal with environmental issues like improving water quality and restoring habitats.

River System of the United States

Rivers and streams of thousands of miles of bed stretch over all of the states in the U.S. The country’s rivers and streams create connections of mountain and lake country, forest, plains, desert, wetlands and coastal regions. It is from the country’s rivers that the nation has received most of its physical and economic characteristics. Thus, these vital streams can be said to form the backbone of the U.S. and its many great cities and natural settings from the heartland’s Mississippi River to the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest and their great tributaries and numerous smaller rivers and streams of every kind.

America's thousands of rivers and streams stretch across the continent and together cover millions of square miles of land. As part of the world's largest collection of river systems, those in the United States provide drinking water for humans and animals, water for irrigation for farming, power through hydroelectric dams, sites for recreational activities of all kinds, wildlife habitats, and transportation routes for millions of people. Many of the nation's greatest cities - including New York, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Portland, and New Orleans - have developed along the banks of their rivers, becoming the centers for commerce and trade that they are today.

How the United States River System Is Organized

The United States river system is divided up into several major drainage basins or watersheds. A watershed or a drainage basin is a geographical area where all of the water including rain, snow melt, etc., drains into one specific river, lake, or ocean. The rivers of the United States flow to one of four major destinations: the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Arctic Ocean.

The largest of these drainage basins is the Mississippi River Basin, covering approximately 1.2 million square miles. It includes all or parts of 31 states and 2 provinces in Canada. The basin is drained by the Mississippi River, which flows south to the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of rivers and streams flow into the Mississippi and all of their water is carried to the Gulf. There are many other large drainage basins in the U.S. including the Columbia River Basin, the Colorado River Basin, the Rio Grande Basin, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin, and many coastal watersheds.

The Mississippi River System

The Backbone of America’s Waterways

The Mississippi River is the most important river in the United States and the core of the nation’s largest river system. The longest river in North America, the Mississippi is 2,340 miles long, extending from the source at Lake Itasca in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana. A backbone of America’s waterways, the Mississippi is a major transportation route, where barges can move agriculture, petroleum, coal, chemicals, and even manufactured goods throughout the country. It supports one of the world’s largest inland waterway systems and supports a huge portion of the U.S. economy.

Today the Mississippi is still an important transportation route for thousands of barges that travel up and down the river carrying a vast array of products including agricultural products, petroleum products, coal, chemicals and even manufactured goods. In addition to being an important transportation route, the Mississippi River and its tributaries support one of the busiest inland waterway systems in the world, and play a critical role in the economy of the United States.

Major Tributaries of the Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is fed by many thousands of smaller tributary streams and several major rivers. The longest river in the United States, the Missouri River (2,341 miles / 3,767 km), joins the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri, after it flows southeasterly through seven states in the heart of the country. The Ohio River, the Mississippi’s largest single tributary, brings more water into the Mississippi than any other stream. The Ohio River and its tributaries drain 50,000 miles of rivers and form the major commercial waterway on the east coast of the country. Other major rivers that flow into the Mississippi include the Arkansas River, the Red River, the Tennessee River, the Illinois River, and the numerous Upper Mississippi River tributaries such as the Minnesota and Wisconsin rivers. The Mississippi and its many thousands of tributaries drain about 41% of the area of the contiguous United States.

Other tributaries to the Mississippi River are the Arkansas River, the Red River, the Tennessee River, the Illinois River, and the many upper Mississippi River tributaries in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Collectively, the rivers and streams of these basins drain about 41% of the area of the continental United States.

Rivers and American History

Rivers have played a vital role in the development of the United States. From early Native American settlements to today’s modern cities, the rivers have provided food, a place to farm, and a method of transportation. Many of the early colonies were established along the waterways in order to have access to the sea for trade. Later, as the country expanded westward, the explorers, including the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804, traveled up and down the many rivers of the country.

Even during the colonial era, rivers of the United States served as routes of travel to new lands as well as to the ports on the coasts. As the country grew and developed, new modes of travel and communication were found, such as the railroad and highway. Yet even today, the river and their centers are hubs of commerce and communication. Many of the large metropolitan cities of the country are sited on the rivers of the land, such as St. Louis on the Mississippi River.

Later, with the development of the railroads and highways, the rivers continued to be a hub of economic activity. The country’s major cities today’s metropolitan cities are located on the rivers and use the waterways for commercial purposes.

Economic Importance of the United States River System

The U.S. River System also is responsible for billions of dollars worth of economic activity each year. Most of this activity involves commercial use of the rivers for navigation. The greatest amount of commercial use on the rivers is on the rivers of the United States is on the Mississippi River System. The barges used on these rivers are filled with such things as agricultural products such as corn, soybeans, wheat and rice. These products are raised on the farms of the interior of the country and then transported down the Mississippi River to export terminals along the Gulf of Mexico.

Many of the dams on rivers create Hydroelectric power. Most of these power plants use water to spin turbines to generate electricity for households and for companies. The largest hydroelectric power producing area in North America is the Columbia River Basin. The rivers create many opportunities for tourist activities, for commercial fishing, for manufacturing, for municipal water supply and for agricultural irrigation.

In many parts of the world, agriculture cannot function without water from the rivers. For the farmers in the western states of the United States, the river water is used for irrigation since the amount of rainfall is insufficient to support crop production. The river systems of the United States, especially the Mississippi Valley and agricultural regions of California, are some of the most productive farmlands in the world.

Ecology and Wildlife of U.S. Rivers

Many of the fish that inhabit rivers are species of great value to anglers, including salmon, trout, catfish, bass, and sturgeon. The rivers of the U.S. and Canada also support millions of water fowl including many species of ducks, geese and pelicans. Wetlands along the rivers are ideal for breeding sites for the above mentioned species as well as for many other animals. These habitats are critical to maintaining healthy populations of wildlife and provide a number of other benefits including flood control, water filtration and carbon sequestration.

The area between the river and the high water mark is called a riparian zone. In this area plants such as trees, grasses and wildflowers and wetlands such as beaver ponds and backwaters and sloughs can be found. These areas support a wide variety of wildlife and are a crucial part of a river system. They also help to filter the water, help to store carbon, and can help to protect against flooding by absorbing excess water during times of high rain. National wildlife refuges and conservation programs work to protect these vital habitats.

Flooding and River Management

However, the Rivers of the United States also bring great problems to the country. Flooding is the most costly natural disaster in the country. The problem of great damage to property and business along the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers have been felt throughout American History. The management of the Rivers to minimize such disasters is a great challenge to federal, state, and local governments. The attempt to balance the great benefits of the Rivers with the problems they present is an on going process that requires the best management practices by all levels of government and by individuals and groups within society.

Most federal projects that manage rivers for flood control, water supply, and other purposes also attempt to manage for water quality and for fish and wildlife. As in many other areas of natural resource management, however, controlling flooding is the primary goal. Levees, dams, reservoirs, floodways, and monitoring stations and computer models are examples of the types of tools that are used in managing rivers for flood control (Army Corps of Engineers, 2007).

Modern river management seeks to balance economic development, environmental conservation, water supply needs, and flood protection. Sustainable management practices have become increasingly important as populations grow and climate conditions change.

Recreation and Tourism Along U.S. Rivers

Many of the States’ Rivers are home to millions of acres of water ways that bring millions of visitors each year to its banks. The activities of these visitors include; boating, kayaking, canoeing, rafting, fishing, swimming, bird watching, and hiking. Some of the scenic rivers around the country are the Colorado River that runs through the Grand Canyon, the Snake River that runs through the States of Wyoming and Idaho, and the Hudson River that runs through the State of New York. These and many more water ways bring millions of dollars to the local economies in the form of tourism.

From recreational activities to scenic viewing, our rivers attract millions of people each year to communities along the country’s waterways. In many cases, the river itself and riverfront parks are the principal draw for tourism. Other attractions include historic towns, national and state parks and other protected scenic waterways. Many communities are finding new life by returning development to the river and building a successful tourism economy along the way.

Challenges Facing the United States River System

There are many challenges that are currently affecting the U.S. river system. These include pollution, invasive species, loss of habitat, drought and increased demand for water. In order to attempt to combat these threats the federal government, the states and a variety of environmental organizations and local communities have come together to implement programs to improve water quality and to attempt to restore damaged habitats.

Climate change brings additional stress to America’s rivers by altering precipitation patterns, increasing the frequency and severity of droughts in some sections of the country and creating more intense and frequent floods in other locations. Management of the river system to address these kinds of water quality and quantity issues involves all levels of government as well as environmental organizations and local communities working together to improve water quality, to restore habitats, and to manage water in a sustainable manner.