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It starts near Grand Lake in Grand County and flows through Grand Junction and then the Grand Canyon.

That is so stupid

The truth is often stupid.

It became the Colorado where the Grand and Green Rivers came together, near Moab, Utah.

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Like how the Missouri River should really be the Mississippi River and the ends of those waters should all be one river.

That’s like the time Congress tried to add Lake Champlain to the Great Lakes.

When CO Congressman Taylor listed his reasons for the change: "But Taylor may have found his most persuasive argument in the record of the U.S. Senate’s proceedings from 1861 when the Senate named the Colorado Territory. As introduced and passed by the House, the name in the bill for the proposed new territory was the “Territory of Idaho”, other names reportedly considered were Jefferson and Arcadia. In the Senate, however, the name “Idaho” was stricken and “Colorado” inserted “for the reason that the Colorado River arose in its mountains, hence there was a peculiar fitness in the name.” https://legisource.net/2021/05/06/the-mighty-colorado-river-once-known-as-merely-grand/

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

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.

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"

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.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to explain!

Indeed