Ohio River

The Ohio River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, 1,579 km (981 mi) long in the eastern United States.

Description

The river is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in downtown Pittsburgh. From Pittsburgh, it flows to the northwest through western Pennsylvania, before making an abrupt, almost 180 degree, turn to the south-southwest at the West Virginia state line where it then forms the border between West Virginia and Ohio. The river then follows a roughly southwestern and then western course between Kentucky and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois until it joins the Mississippi from the east at Cairo, Illinois. At its mouth, the Ohio is wider than the Mississippi itself. http://terraserver.microsoft.com/map.aspx?t=1&s=14&lon=-89.1538398279652&lat=36.9976844072984&w=750&h=500&opt=0&f=Tahoma,Verdana,Arial&fs=8&fc=ffffff99

Related Topics:
Allegheny - Monongahela - Pittsburgh - Pennsylvania - West Virginia - Ohio - Kentucky - Indiana - Illinois - Cairo, Illinois

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Major tributaries of the river, indicated by the location of their mouth, include:

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• Allegheny River — Pennsylvania
• Monongahela River — Pennsylvania
• Beaver River— Pennsylvania
• Little Muskingum River — Ohio
• Duck Creek — Ohio
• Muskingum River — Ohio
• Little Kanawha River — West Virginia
• Hocking River — Ohio
• Kanawha River — West Virginia
• Guyandotte River — West Virginia
• Big Sandy River — Kentucky-West Virginia border
• Scioto River — Ohio
• Little Miami River — Ohio
• Licking River — Kentucky
• Great Miami River — Ohio-Indiana border
• Kentucky River — Kentucky
• Green River — Kentucky
• Wabash River — Indiana-Illinois border
• Saline River — Illinois
• Cumberland River — Kentucky
• Tennessee River — Kentucky

Watershed

The Ohio's watershed covers 490,603 square kilometers (189,422 square miles), including the eastern-most regions of the Mississippi Basin. States drained by the Ohio include:

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• Illinois (the southeast corner of the state),
• Indiana (all but the northern area of the state),
• Ohio (the southern half of the state),
• New York (a small area of the southern border along the headwaters of the Allegheny River),
• Pennsylvania (a corridor from the southwestern corner to north central border),
• Maryland (a small corridor along the Youghiogheny River on the state's western border),
• West Virginia (all but the eastern border of the state),
• Kentucky (all but a tiny part in the extreme west of the state drained directly by the Mississippi River),
• Tennessee (all but a small part in the extreme west of the state drained directly by the Mississippi River),
• Virginia (the western border of the state),
• North Carolina (the western border of the state),
• Georgia (the northwest corner of the state),
• Alabama (the northern fringe of the state), and
• Mississippi (the northeast corner of the state).

See http://earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/maps_detail_static.cfm?map_select=393&theme=2 for a map and information on the Ohio's watershed.

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