Mississippi is one of the great rivers of the world.The famous writer Mark Twain, it was compared with the first liar in the world.The name of the Mississippi was due to the willful nature of the flow.
Near the mouth of the territory of the lower course, the river meanders as she wants, across the plain.In the spring, it can adjust its length, or greater, or downwards, by changing channels.It is difficult in this case falls to those people who dared to settle on the banks of its variability.The very name of the Mississippi translated from Indian means "great river."
Where proceeds
Mississippi - the river, which is the main water artery of communication in North America.It begins in Minnesota.The source of the Mississippi Lake Itasca is located at an altitude of 1575 meters above sea level.River are divided into two portions.From its source to its confluence with the Ohio River is the Upper Mississippi.Next - the territory of the Lower Mississippi.
After a lovely waterfall St. Antonio river becomes navigable.In this zone, the relief channel is changed to flat.Mississippi - the river, which in the lower reaches of its waters slowly.She literally poured into a wide plain.The direction of the Mississippi River - from north to south.It is clearly seen in the political map of the United States.The river flows through ten states and serves as a natural boundary for many of them.If we take into account the main tributary of the Mississippi - Missouri, the great river basin covers thirty-one States.On the map blue thread surface of the water is limited to the Rocky Mountains in the west, in the east of the Appalachians and the Canadian border in the north.According to its length, this river system is the fourth largest on the planet.
mouth of the great waterway
where the Mississippi River empties?In the Gulf of Mexico.The mouth of the Mississippi River is located just south (on the one hundred and sixty kilometers) of New Orleans.
at the confluence of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico constitutes a sufficiently large delta, the area which is located on an area of 31,860 square kilometers.The width of said zone is 300 km.Much of the delta is the area occupied by lakes and swamps.Shipping at the confluence of the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico is extremely complicated.
Movement river transport complicate numerous sandbanks and frequent devastating floods.Partially solve the problem allowed the construction of dams.However, this has led to the fact that the river has ceased to supply the adjacent area important for fertility and silt reduced the growth rate of the delta, which preserved the history of its existence.
inflows
The largest river, which flows into the Mississippi, Missouri is.Its source is in the place where the confluence of three rivers.One of them - Jefferson.
North America is the owner of the longest water system on its territory.Her constitute the Mississippi, the Missouri River, and Jefferson.The beds of these waterways have a large enough length.The distance from the source of the river to the mouth of the great Jefferson Mississippi is six thousand three hundred kilometers.Missouri - right tributary of the longest waterway in North America.
second largest river, which flows into the Mississippi, is Arkansas.It is a right tributary of it.The most full-flowing river, which flows into the Mississippi, Ohio, is (it is a left tributary).
On the map you can find America and other major rivers that flow into the Mississippi.So, its right tributaries are the Red River and Minnesota, and left - Illinois, Des Moines, and Wisconsin.
water regime and characteristics of the pool
Mississippi - the river, whose length is three thousand nine hundred and fifty kilometers.If you calculate this value from the sources of the Missouri, the value will be increased to 6420 km.The area of the basin of the Mississippi is three thousand two hundred sixty-eight square kilometers.This value is equal to forty percent of the entire area of the United States (excluding Alaska).The average water flow of the Mississippi is twelve thousand seven hundred and forty-three cubic meters per second.In its lower reaches of the great river never freezes.In the top three or four months during the year lasts freezing.
Feature bed
In the area of its upper reaches of the great river flows through America's small lake.Description of the Mississippi River indicates the presence of rapids and rocky shoals.The most significant of them are located at the Falls of St. Anton, near the city of Minneapolis.So have settlements Keokuk County and Davenport.
riverbed in the area from Minneapolis to the mouth of the Missouri sluice.He built twenty Bole dams.
features the Mississippi River in its middle portion is somewhat different.There are mostly water on one channel, whose width is ten to fifteen meters.The middle section of the river waters come close to steep slopes.
After the confluence of Missouri flows into the channel of muddy water muddy brown.Over one hundred and fifty-one hundred and eighty kilometers of the stream adjacent to the relatively clean waters of the Mississippi.
lower portion of the river majestically carries its waters on a broad plain, the soil is composed of alluvial deposits.The bed in these places sinuous.It has many branches and oxbows.Where the Mississippi River carries its waters calm of a vast plain, formed a maze of ducts.Many are floodplain marshes and oxbow lakes, which flooded during floods to nearby territory.
Virtually all land bordering the river bed has a natural beach ridges.For flood protection, they reinforced the system consisting of artificial dams with a total length of more than four thousand kilometers.River flows between the shafts.In some places the upper surface of water on a level higher than the surface of the floodplain.
little below the city of Baton Rouge originates Delta paddle shape.It occupies a large area (almost 32 thousand square kilometers).
bed of the Mississippi Delta in the end is branched into six short sleeve length from thirty to forty kilometers.They flow into the Gulf of Mexico.The main of these arms is called South West Pass.This south-west branch of the Mississippi, which flows into the Gulf for more than thirty percent of the total runoff.
during floods is a sharp increase in the water level.In part, they are discharged into Lake Pontchartrain, which is located near New Orleans.The remaining part falls into the river Alchafalaya, which runs parallel to the Mississippi and also empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
Power
most of the water from the river receives rainfall and from snowmelt.It is noteworthy that this right tributaries are making a great contribution to the power of the Mississippi.These rivers formed from melting snow, are at the Rockies.Right tributaries feed the Mississippi, as a rule, stormwater and rainwater.
Floods
nature of the water regime of the river is associated with spring and summer.The mite introduced and torrential rains.Flooding sometimes have a catastrophic scale.This happens in the case where the melting of snow in the basins of the Missouri and Mississippi coincides with the rain flows that occur in the basin of the Ohio.
In such cases, the lower and middle reaches of the river there is a strong flood.In the period of flood water flow in the channel increased to fifty or eighty thousand cubic meters per second.Built in the lower reaches of the waterworks is not able to fully protect the field and settlements from floods.
waterways of the Mississippi - is a convenient way for the central regions of North America from the Gulf of Mexico.Great River is a major transportation artery connecting the United States and the development of agricultural and industrial areas of the country.
as the Mississippi waterway has become not so important during the acute competition from the railways in the late nineteenth - early twentieth century.However, with the development of the Great Lakes region of Mississippi value increased again.
Currently, the total length of navigable waterways is twenty-five thousand kilometers.At the bottom of the Mississippi cargo turnover for the year up to seven million tons.The main goods are chemicals and building materials, petroleum products and coal.
It is interesting
In fiction Mississippi associated with the name Mark Twain.He described the trip on the river in the work "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
Mississippi is considered the cradle of jazz.It was in New Orleans, located on its banks, he was born the famous jazz musician whose name - Louis Armstrong.
golden age for the river was the nineteenth.During this period, there were many on the Mississippi River steamboats.Now there is a revival of an old tradition.However, today, traveling by boat, usually for tourism purposes.
