Mississippi River

With a length of 2,065 miles (4,000 km), the Mississippi River serves as both a major river and the headwaters of the Mississippi River drainage system, which is second in size only to the Hudson Bay drainage system on North America's continental continent. Flowing mostly south from its traditional source at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it eventually reaches the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico after 2,340 miles (3,770 kilometres) of travel. Its watershed drains all or portions of 32 states in the United States and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian ranges, thanks to its many tributaries. In all, the drainage basin covers 1,151,000 square miles (2,980,000 km2), with just around one percent of that area being in Canada. The main stem is completely inside the United States, and the whole drainage basin is 1,151,000 square miles (2,980,000 km2). When it comes to discharge, the Mississippi is the fourteenth-largest river in the world. Among the states bordering or passing through the Mississippi River are the following: Minnesota; Wisconsin; Iowa; Illinois; Missouri; Kentucky; Tennessee; Arkansas; Mississippi; Louisiana; and Missouri.

The Mississippi River and its tributaries have been home to indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Most were hunter-gatherers, but others, such as the Mound Builders, developed extensive agricultural and urban civilizations that were a model for later generations. Because of the rising number of explorers and settlers that came to the basin throughout the 16th century, Native Americans' way of life was drastically altered when Europeans arrived in the region. At first, the river acted as a physical barrier, establishing the frontiers of three nations: New Spain, New France, and the early United States; later, it served as a crucial transit route and communication connection. Rivers like the Mississippi and many western tributaries, especially the Missouri, served as conduits for the growth of the United States' western frontier during the 19th century, when manifest destiny was at its zenith.

In the United States, one of the most productive places is the Mississippi embayment, which was formed by thick layers of the river's silt deposits. During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, steamboats were frequently employed to transport agricultural and industrial commodities down the Mississippi. Because of the river's strategic significance to the Confederate war effort, the Union troops' control of the Mississippi during the American Civil War constituted a watershed moment in the war's progress. Significant engineering works like as levees, locks, and dams were constructed in large numbers throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, owing to the rapid rise of towns and the bigger ships and barges that replaced steamboats. These works were often constructed in conjunction. One of the primary goals of this endeavour has been to prevent the lower Mississippi from moving into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and avoiding New Orleans entirely.

Because of increased nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, which is the principal contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, the Mississippi River has also undergone substantial pollution and environmental concerns throughout the twentieth century.