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Hiiipower111 t1_jb0lqii wrote

Reply to comment by AutomaticMethod2437 in TIL Until 1921 the Colorado River did not flow through the State of Colorado. It took an act of Congress to “move” the river into the state by renaming the Grand River and adding it to the Colorado River. by triviafrenzy

I always thought it was weird how they change the name of the river to Mississippi after the Missouri river passes through stl

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kmosiman t1_jb0qj95 wrote

Not sure how you are measuring this. Typically a river is determined by flow rate not length.

I believe the Mississippi-Missouri branch is the longest. From a water flow standpoint the Ohio is the largest, so the main run of the river to the Gulf should be the Ohio.

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Hiiipower111 t1_jb0y5wl wrote

I dunno what you mean by not sure how I am measuring this? I'm not measuring anything, I live in Washington Missouri right beside the MO river and once it gets around the Illinois border it's called the Mississippi.

It's kinda the same as how they name the oceans different names even though they're all connected. Just thought it weird

I'm not out here taking measurements though, and didn't know "a river is determined by flow rate"

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kmosiman t1_jb19exo wrote

Ok so the Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri river has 3 main branches. The Mississippi runs mostly North-south the Missouri runs from the West and the Ohio from the East all committed g together on the Illinois border.

The Ohio is the largest by volume so if you were an explorer finding a brand new river on the coast you'd trace the river up sticking with the biggest one every time there were 2 streams coming together. This would mean that the end of the "new" river would be the Ohio River.

Now depending on the time of year and recent rains this could get tricky because the Mississippi might be bigger than the Ohio at the convergence some of the time, but on average the Ohio is the bigger river where they merge.

If you traced the river and wanted to get the longest river you'd have to follow the smaller branch and trace it up the Missouri River.

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