What river runs east to west?

The Mississippi River watershed is the fourth largest in the world, extending from the Allegheny Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The Amazon for comparison drains about 7.1 million square kilometers (2.7 million square miles).



People Also Ask

Do rivers flow upstream or downstream? Usually, rivers flow downstream, but there are some that don't. This can happen when rivers flow south to north due to the source of the river being higher up in the South. One famous river that has this type of flow is the Nile River in Africa.

MORE DETAILS

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.

MORE DETAILS

There are countless examples of rivers flowing northward. Some of the most famous are the world's longest river the Nile, along with Russia's Ob, Lena, and Yenisey Rivers. The Red River in the U.S. and Canada and Florida's St. Johns River also flow north.

MORE DETAILS

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.

MORE DETAILS

Gravity makes water flow to the lowest point nearby. The Ocean is the lowest point on Earth's surface, but it is not always the lowest point nearby. A river may pass few kilometers from the coast, but if there is a mountain to the coast side and lower plains on the other, it will flow to the other, obviously.

MORE DETAILS

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.

MORE DETAILS