What are the only rivers that flow north in the United States?

The New River is unique among North Carolina rivers for several reasons. It is one of the few major rivers in the continental United States to flow north. Other major rivers that flow northward include the Bighorn River in Montana or the Red River of the North in Minnesota.



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In the US, at least 48 rivers in 16 states flow north, including nine in Alaska and eight in Washington. According to some sources, South America has the highest number of northward-flowing rivers.

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According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, four of the world's 10 longest rivers flow generally northward: the Nile, the Mackenzie-Peace (in Canada) the Ob and the Lena (in Siberia). In fact, NASA says that there are rivers flowing north on every continent.

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Other rivers that flow south to north include: St. John's River in Florida, the San Joaquin River in California, the Red River running through several southern states, the Shennandoah in Virginia and West Virginia, the Ob, Yenisey and Lena Rivers in Russia, and the Mackenzie River in Canada, to name just a few.

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A more precise total should consist of thousands of rivers. It is safe to say that over 250 major rivers in the world actually flow north.

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It always does — right? But under Antarctica's ice, water can sometimes run uphill. Under the right conditions, a whole river can spurt from one lake uphill to another lake. That's because the ice weighs so much that it presses down on the water with thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch.

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Why the Tonle Sap River Is Unlike Any Other River in the World. In this week's Maphead column, Ken Jennings explains how one river in Cambodia ends up changing direction a few times every year.

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The most famous river that flows north is also the longest river in the world: the Nile, which passes through 11 different countries in northeastern Africa. The river's principal tributaries are the White Nile and the Blue Nile.

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The Everglades is the world's slowest-moving river. When rain fills Lake Okeechobee, in south-central Florida, the lake overflows into the 50-foot wide, 1.5 million acre water filtration system and flows about one meter an hour toward the Gulf of Mexico, at the southern tip of the Sunshine State.

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There is absolutely nothing weird about a river flowing north. Rivers flow in one direction all over the world, and that direction is downhill. Across the central and eastern United States, it is rare for rivers to flow north because the slope of the land is toward the south and east.

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Water flows in the path of least resistance – there are rivers and tributaries all over the world that flow east, west, north, and south. The St. Johns flows north because its headwaters are a mere 27 feet higher in elevation than where it ends – dropping approximately one inch per mile over the course of 310 miles.

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Over millions of years, much of this water is recycled between the inner Earth, the oceans and rivers, and the atmosphere. This cycling process means that freshwater is constantly made available to Earth's surface where we all live. Volcanoes release massive amounts of water from the inner Earth to the atmosphere.

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Nile River, Arabic Ba?r Al-Nil or Nahr Al-Nil, the longest river in the world, called the father of African rivers. It rises south of the Equator and flows northward through northeastern Africa to drain into the Mediterranean Sea.

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