The Mississippi ranks as the fourth-longest river and fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural and urban civilisations. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link.
Introduction
Mississippi River
Mississippi River | Introduction
States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky. Minnesota, Louisiana, Wisconsin, are few among the 10 states. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
when was the last time a hurricane hit tampa bay area
user
1921
assistant
which areas did it effected?
user
Cuba, Pasco County, Manatee County and Sarasota County.
assistant
who ruled the first place?
user
Communist Party of Cuba
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which ethnic groups immigrated here?
user
Afro-Cubans
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what is one of the principles of its communist party?
user
It entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party, followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies.
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when was it founded?
user
3 October 1965
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what arrangements were made before the 1921 hurricane?
user
Storm warnings were issued eastward from mouth of the Mississippi River and along the east coast of Florida.
assistant
which states surround borders the river you just mentioned?
user
The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana, and is used to define portions of these states borders, with Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi along the east side of the river, and Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas along its west side. Substantial parts of both Minnesota and Louisiana are on either side of the river, although the Mississippi defines part of the boundary of each of these states. In all of these cases, the middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was used as the line to define the borders between adjacent states.
Mississippi River | State boundaries
In various areas, the river has since shifted, but the state borders have not changed, still following the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment, leaving several small isolated areas of one state across the new river channel, contiguous with the adjacent state. Also, due to a meander in the river, a small part of western Kentucky is contiguous with Tennessee, but isolated from the rest of its state.
Mississippi River | State boundaries
The final boundary between Georgia and Mississippi Territory was defined to follow the Chattahoochee River north from the border with Spanish Florida. However, the Chattahoochee's upper course veers northeast, deep into Georgia. So the boundary was defined to follow the river until it turned northeast, and from that point to follow a straight line north to the 35th parallel (whose role in state borders dates back to the split of North and South Carolina in 1730). The line was not run straight north but rather angled to meet the northern border of the territory one-third of the way west, leaving the other two-thirds for two future states (Alabama and Mississippi.
Mississippi Territory | Borders
The course of the Charles River was used to indirectly define the border between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The Merrimack River defines part of the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which runs parallel to the river, three miles north of it (see Northern boundary of Massachusetts.)
List of river borders of U.S. states | List of river borders
The Mississippi ranks as the fourth-longest river and fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural and urban civilisations. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link.
Mississippi River | Introduction
These border irregularities were caused by changes in the Mississippi River during the 1812 New Madrid earthquake or other river changes: Other irregularities involving the Mississippi River:
Border irregularities of the United States | Separated by the Mississippi River
The entire length of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi overflowed to an average of from each bank.
1916 Gulf Coast hurricane | Louisiana and Mississippi
The river served as the western boundary of the United States until it annexed Texas in 1845.
Sabine River (Texas–Louisiana) | Border dispute
Highway 61 near Redwood was closed by backwater flooding along the Yazoo River on May 13 and was closed until June 3. In anticipation of major flooding, the U.S. federal government declared 14 counties along the Mississippi River, the Thames River: Adams, Bolivar, Claiborne, Coahoma, DeSoto, Humphreys, Issaquena, Jefferson, Sharkey, Tunica, Warren, Washington, Wilkinson and Yazoo. The Flood of 2011 set new record stages at Vicksburg and Natchez. The peak streamflow at Vicksburg, , exceeded both the estimated peak streamflow of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, , and the measured peak streamflow of the 1937 flood, . The Project Design Flood predicts that a flowrate at Vicksburg of would still be within the limits of the downstream capacities, meaning that the May 17 - May 18 peak flow was about 85% of the acceptable flowrate for Vicksburg.
2011 Mississippi River floods | Mississippi
The southern boundary of the United States with the Spanish colonies of East Florida and West Florida was established as a line beginning on the Mississippi River at the 31st parallel north, the 1763 line, drawn due east to the middle of the Chattahoochee River, then downstream along the middle of the river to the junction with the Flint River, then due east to the headwaters of the St. Marys River, and then along the middle of the channel to the Atlantic Ocean.
Pinckney's Treaty | Article II
The Mississippi River is the nominal western boundary of the state, except for locations where the river has changed course. Kaskaskia, Illinois, the first state capital, is now west of the river. The Mississippi, due to a flood, destroyed the old town of Kaskaskia, and occupies what was the lower channel of the Kaskaskia River. A portion of Missouri is east of the river, near Grand Tower, Illinois. Similar "avulsions" are found along the Ohio River border with Kentucky and the Wabash River border with Indiana.
Geography of Illinois | Border anomalies
See also List of rivers of Mississippi.
List of longest rivers in the United States by state | <a href="Mississippi">Mississippi</a>
River boundaries are typically defined by the "thread of the channel" (the river's thalweg, usually in the approximate middle of the river's channel), under a rule that the United States inherited from England, where it applies to boundaries between counties. In the United States, there are at least six exceptions, however, where the boundary is one bank of the river rather than the thread of the channel:
List of river borders of U.S. states | The rule of the thread of the channel and its exceptions
As flood waters proceeded down the Lower Mississippi from the St. Louis area (where the Missouri River and the Mississippi River converge), they affected Missouri and Illinois, then Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
2011 Mississippi River floods | Flood stages and effects by state
Mississippi is bordered to the north by Tennessee, to the east by Alabama, to the south by Louisiana and a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico; and to the west, across the Mississippi River, by Louisiana and Arkansas. In addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla, Sardis, and Grenada, with the largest being Sardis Lake. Mississippi is entirely composed of lowlands, the highest point being Woodall Mountain, in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, above sea level.
Mississippi | Geography
Approximately 50,000 years ago, the Central United States was covered by an inland sea, which was drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries into the Gulf of Mexico—creating large floodplains and extending the continent further to the south in the process. The soil in areas such as Louisiana was thereafter found to be very rich.
Mississippi River | History
Following Britain's victory in the Seven Years War the Mississippi became the border between the British and Spanish Empires. The Treaty of Paris (1763) gave Great Britain rights to all land east of the Mississippi and Spain rights to land west of the Mississippi. Spain also ceded Florida to Britain to regain Cuba, which the British occupied during the war. Britain then divided the territory into East and West Florida. Article 8 of the Treaty of Paris (1783) states, "The navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, shall forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States".
Mississippi River | Colonization
Interstate 29 closed in early June from Iowa Highway 2 (across the Missouri River from Nebraska City, Nebraska) to Rock Port, Missouri. The United States Coast Guard closed the river to boaters from Gavins Point Dam (Mile Post 850) to Mile Post 450 near St. Joseph, Missouri.
2011 Missouri River Flood | Missouri
Possibly disappointed that the treaty did not include the fertile lands on the east bank of the Mississippi River, President Thomas Jefferson had delayed ratification in the Senate for over two years after the signing. The boundary line was finally surveyed in 1809, with both Creek and Choctaw assisting.
Choctaw Corner | History
The refuge is one of only two that spans portions of four states (the other is Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge). As of 30 September 2007 the area per state was: Wisconsin: , Iowa: , Minnesota: , Illinois: . The following counties border on or have land within the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. In each state, the counties are listed from north to south. The lakes and rivers within the refuge area of each county are also listed.
Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge | Geography
As this was determined to be geographically impossible (the Mississippi begins further south), under the 1818 treaty the international border instead ran from the point determined by Tiarks, to the 49th parallel. (It was not known at the time whether that was to the north or – in fact – the south.) From there it ran due west to the Rocky Mountains (and later, the Pacific coast).
Northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods | Introduction
The river's original path, however, still serves as the border between the states of Mississippi and Louisiana, and the site of the brawl is therefore within Mississippi.
Sandbar Fight | Introduction
The United States extended its western boundaries to the Mississippi River during the American Revolutionary War, when General George Rogers Clark took possession of the lands east of the Mississippi River which had for some years belonged to Great Britain. American control of the territory which became today's Midwestern states (the former Illinois Country and Ohio Country) was not secure until both the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the Jay Treaty (1794) had been formalized.
Three Flags Day | Background
However, Walker argued that the area had more in common with the Mississippi River towns of Cape Girardeau, Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis in Missouri than with its proposed location in Arkansas Territory. The border was then dropped about 50 miles to the 36th parallel north. It follows that parallel about 30 miles until it intersects the St. Francis River, then follows the river back up to about the 36°30' parallel just west of Campbell, Missouri.
John Hardeman Walker | Introduction
These images demonstrate that the plume did not mix with the surrounding sea water immediately. Instead, it stayed intact as it flowed through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Straits of Florida, and entered the Gulf Stream. The Mississippi River water rounded the tip of Florida and traveled up the southeast coast to the latitude of Georgia before finally mixing in so thoroughly with the ocean that it could no longer be detected by MODIS. Before 1900, the Mississippi River transported an estimated of sediment per year from the interior of the United States to coastal Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico.
Mississippi River | Outflow
Two of the most deadly tornado outbreaks in U.S. history combined with spring snowmelt cause the Mississippi to swell to record levels. Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana were affected, and the western counties of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi were declared federal disaster areas. The Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway was put into use for the first time since 1937. Nine floodgates of the Morganza Spillway were opened, marking the first use of the gates since the 1973 flood. 330 of the Bonnet Carré Spillway's gates were opened to save the levees protecting New Orleans. There was concern that if the Old River Control Structure, the Morganza Spillway, or the Bonnet Carré Spillway failed, the Mississippi River could change its course, flowing either into the Atchafalaya Basin or Lake Pontchartrain.
Floods in the United States: 2001–present | Spring 2011 Mississippi River Floods
Arkansas was hardest hit, with 14% of its territory covered by floodwaters. By May 1927, the Mississippi River below Memphis, Tennessee, reached a width of .
Steamboats of the Mississippi | Flood of 1927
Lock and Dam No. 2, near Hastings, Minnesota, was completed in 1930. Before the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the Corps's primary strategy was to close off as many side channels as possible to increase the flow in the main river. It was thought that the river's velocity would scour off bottom sediments, deepening the river and decreasing the possibility of flooding. The 1927 flood proved this to be so wrong that communities threatened by the flood began to create their own levee breaks to relieve the force of the rising river.
Mississippi River | 20th century
The United States Army Corps of Engineers stated that an area in Louisiana between Simmesport and Baton Rouge was expected to be inundated with of water. Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and many other river towns were threatened, but officials stressed that they should be able to avoid catastrophic flooding.
2011 Mississippi River floods | Introduction
Tiarks determined that the only such line that did not intersect the lake was at the edge of a pond on the Angle Inlet. A 1940 academic study documents this point as being in the immediate vicinity of 49°23′51.324″N 95°9′12.20783″W (NAD83). In the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the error regarding the Mississippi River was corrected by having the boundary continue due south from the northwest point of the lake, but only to the 49th parallel and then westward along it. The Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 reaffirmed this border. However, the placement of the northwestern corner and shape of the lake meant that this north–south line cut off a section of U.S.
Northwest Angle | Origin
The western boundary of the United States with the Spanish colony of Louisiana was established as the middle of the Mississippi River from the northern boundary of the United States (how far north the Mississippi extended was still unknown) to the 31st degree north latitude, and both Spanish subjects and U.S. citizens would have free navigation along the full length of the Mississippi from its source to the ocean.
Pinckney's Treaty | Article IV
Closer to New Orleans, a robust 1.8 mile surge barrier costing more than $1 billion was constructed. The surge barrier closed the narrow end of the "funnel" described by the convergence of the levees bounding the northern edge of the Intracoastal Waterway and the southern edge of the MRGO, preventing future storm surges from penetrating into the inner harbor of the Industrial Canal and Intracoastal Waterway. Two gates were built, one at Bayou Bienvenue and another across the Intracoastal Waterway, to permit the passage of barge and other small commercial traffic during normal weather conditions. The barrier, the largest of its kind in the United States, should protect against storm surges up to 28 feet in height.
Mississippi River–Gulf Outlet Canal | Surge Barrier
It marked the end of Spanish hostility, and the end of Spanish expansion. The two nations agreed not to incite native tribes to warfare. The western boundary of the U.S. was established along the Mississippi River from the northern boundary of the United States to the 31st degree north latitude, while the southern boundary of the United States was established on the 31st parallel north. In 1798 the U.S. organized the once-disputed territory into the Mississippi Territory in 1798. Most importantly, Pinckney's Treaty conceded unrestricted access of the entire Mississippi River to Americans, opening much of the Ohio River Valley for settlement and trade.
Federalist Era | Spanish territories
The "Big Freeze" of 1918–19 blocked river traffic north of Memphis, Tennessee, preventing transportation of coal from southern Illinois. This resulted in widespread shortages, high prices, and rationing of coal in January and February. In the spring of 1927, the river broke out of its banks in 145 places, during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and inundated to a depth of up to . In 1962 and 1963, industrial accidents spilled of soybean oil into the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. The oil covered the Mississippi River from St. Paul to Lake Pepin, creating an ecological disaster and a demand to control water pollution.
Mississippi River | 20th and 21st centuries
There are several flood control systems on the Mississippi River. The Bonnet Carre Spillway was built in response to the flood of 1927. Farther downriver, the Bohemia Spillway, started in 1924 and completed in 1926 just before the flood, was one of the earliest attempts to protect New Orleans from floods.
Caernarvon, Louisiana | Flood control
Mary's River, which then forms the remainder of the boundary back to the ocean.
Georgia (U.S. state) | Boundaries
The state's name is derived from the Mississippi River, which flows along and defines its western boundary. European-American settlers named it after the Ojibwe word "misi-ziibi" ().
Mississippi | Etymology
The FCC also uses it as the dividing line for broadcast call-signs, which begin with W to the east and K to the west, mixing together in media markets along the river.
Mississippi River | Name and significance
It restricted American trading and travel on the Mississippi River down to New Orleans, the major port on the Gulf Coast. Winthrop Sargent, territorial governor in 1798, proved unable to impose a code of laws. Not until the emergence of cotton as a profitable staple crop in the nineteenth century, after the invention of the cotton gin, were the riverfront areas of Mississippi developed as cotton plantations. These were based on slave labor, and developed most intensively along the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, bordering the Mississippi Delta. The rivers offered the best transportation to markets.
History of Mississippi | Territory and statehood
Ice sheets during the Illinoian Stage, about 300,000 to 132,000 years before present, blocked the Mississippi near Rock Island, Illinois, diverting it to its present channel farther to the west, the current western border of Illinois. The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi downstream from Rock Island to Hennepin, Illinois. South of Hennepin, to Alton, Illinois, the current Illinois River follows the ancient channel used by the Mississippi River before the Illinoian Stage. Timeline of outflow course changes
Mississippi River | Prehistoric courses
From the summer of 1926 into the spring of 1927, heavy rains much greater than normal saturated the ground throughout eastern Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Ohio Valley. The White and Little Red rivers broke through the levees in Arkansas in February, flooding over with of water. The first levee break along the Mississippi River occurred a few miles south of Elaine, Arkansas on March 29. Over the next six weeks, numerous levees broke along the Mississippi River from Illinois to Louisiana, which inundated numerous towns in the Mississippi Valley. The break at Mounds Landing near Greenville, Mississippi, was the single greatest crevasse to ever occur along the Mississippi River.
Floods in the United States: 1901–2000 | Great Mississippi Flood of 1927
The word Mississippi itself comes from , the French rendering of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe or Algonquin) name for the river, (Great River). In the 18th century, the river was the primary western boundary of the young United States, and since the country's expansion westward, the Mississippi River has been widely considered a convenient if approximate dividing line between the Eastern, Southern, and Midwestern United States, and the Western United States. This is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase "Trans-Mississippi" as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, such as "the highest peak east of the Mississippi" or "the oldest city west of the Mississippi".
Mississippi River | Name and significance
With this treaty, which ended the American Revolutionary War, Britain also ceded West Florida back to Spain to regain the Bahamas, which Spain had occupied during the war. Initial disputes around the ensuing claims of the U.S. and Spain were resolved when Spain was pressured into signing Pinckney's Treaty in 1795. However, in 1800, under duress from Napoleon of France, Spain ceded an undefined portion of West Florida to France in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. The United States then secured effective control of the river when it bought the Louisiana Territory from France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
Mississippi River | Colonization
Due to seasonal flooding, possible from December to June, the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers and their tributaries created a fertile floodplain in the Mississippi Delta. The river's flooding created natural levees, which planters had built higher to try to prevent flooding of land cultivated for cotton crops. Temporary workers built levees along the Mississippi River on top of the natural levees that formed from dirt deposited after the river flooded. From 1858 to 1861, the state took over levee building, accomplishing it through contractors and hired labor. In those years, planters considered their slaves too valuable to hire out for such dangerous work.
Mississippi | Flooding
Mississippi County has borders across the river with four Kentucky counties, but it has no direct highway connection between any of them due to the mile-wide barrier of the river in this area. None of the four Kentucky counties that border Missouri has any direct highway connection with Missouri. Kentucky and Missouri are the only two U.S. states to border each other, even across a major river, without a direct highway connection between them. This reflects the relatively low populations among the river counties on both sides, which are largely rural in character. In early 2016, Mississippi County was declared as the poorest county in Missouri.
Mississippi County, Missouri | Adjacent counties
Article 3 of the treaty states: The Boundary Line between the two Countries, West of the Mississippi, shall begin on the Gulf of Mexico, at the mouth of the River Sabine in the Sea (), continuing North, along the Western Bank of that River, to the 32d degree of Latitude (); thence by a Line due North to the degree of Latitude, where it strikes the Rio Roxo of Nachitoches, or Red-River (), then following the course of the Rio-Roxo Westward to the degree of Longitude, 100 West from London and 23 from Washington (), then crossing the said Red-River, and running thence by a Line due North to the River Arkansas (), thence, following the Course of the Southern bank of the Arkansas to its source in Latitude, 42.
Adams–Onís Treaty | Border
The Mississippi River floods in April and May 2011 were among the largest and most damaging recorded along the U.S. waterway in the past century, comparable in extent to the major floods of 1927 and 1993. In April 2011, two major storm systems deposited record levels of rainfall on the Mississippi River watershed. When that additional water combined with the springtime snowmelt, the river and many of its tributaries began to swell to record levels by the beginning of May. Areas along the Mississippi itself experiencing flooding included Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. U.S. President Barack Obama declared the western counties of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi federal disaster areas.
2011 Mississippi River floods | Introduction
Because of its unique history, many of the boundaries of the political divisions of the United States were artificially constructed (rather than permitted to evolve and drawn using natural features of the landscape). Therefore, many U.S. states have straight lines as boundaries, especially in the West. However, there are many partial state boundaries, particularly in the Midwest, Northeast, and South, that are defined by rivers; in fact, only five states (Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming) completely lack any borders defined by rivers or waterways.
List of river borders of U.S. states | Introduction
In 1763, it came under British control at the end of the Seven Years' War. In 1767, the northern boundary was moved to 32°28' north latitude (from the current location of Vicksburg, Mississippi, east to the Chattahoochee River). In 1783, Britain recognized the Spanish conquest of West Florida in the war, but it did not specify the northern border. In the separate treaty with the U.S., Britain specified the southern boundary as 31 degrees north latitude. Spain claimed the British expansion of West Florida, while the U.S. held to the older boundary. Britain had also granted free navigation on the Pearl River to the United States, even in areas where Spain claimed both sides of the river.
Esteban Rodríguez Miró | Governor of Louisiana
A flood that appears to have been caused by a tropical cyclone led to the flood of record on the Red River of the South. This flood shifted the river to its present course, moving out of Natchitoches. A remnant of the river known as Cane River extends from Grand Ecore to Colfax.
Floods in the United States before 1901 | Red River of the South flood – August 1849
U.S. Highway 61 between Redwood and Onward, Mississippi, was the only major road not closed at some time by flooding despite being surrounded by flood waters over most of this route. The first flood related fatatlities in the Yazoo Backwater Area occurred on 17 June 2019 when a man and a pregnant woman drowned after their car skidded off Satartia Road near Holly Bluff and sank in flood waters surrounding the road.
Mississippi River floods of 2019 | Yazoo Backwater Area, Mississippi Delta
This list is arranged by drainage basin, with respective tributaries indented under each larger stream's name. All rivers in Mississippi eventually flow into the Gulf of Mexico.
List of rivers of Mississippi | By drainage basin
The Mississippi 1927 flood began when heavy rains pounded the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September, the Mississippi's tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On New Year's Day of 1927, the Cumberland River at Nashville topped levees at . The Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded or about . The area was inundated up to a depth of . The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states. The flood affected Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.
Steamboats of the Mississippi | Flood of 1927
Most states in the Mississippi River Basin experienced above average precipitation.
Mississippi River floods of 2019 | Meteorology
This northern border was originally the Georgia and North Carolina border all the way to the Mississippi River, until Tennessee was divided from North Carolina, and the Yazoo companies induced the legislature of Georgia to pass an act, approved by the governor in 1795, to sell the greater part of Georgia's territory presently comprising Alabama and Mississippi. The state's western border runs in a straight line south-southeastward from a point southwest of Chattanooga, to meet the Chattahoochee River near West Point. It continues downriver to the point where it joins the Flint River (the confluence of the two forming Florida's Apalachicola River); the southern border goes almost due east and very slightly south, in a straight line to the St.
Georgia (U.S. state) | Boundaries
The boundaries of the Republic of West Florida included all territory south of parallel 31°N, east of the Mississippi River, and north of the waterway formed by the Iberville River, Amite River, Lake Maurepas, Pass Manchac, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Rigolets. The Pearl River, with its branch that flowed into the Rigolets, formed the eastern boundary of the republic. A military expedition from the republic attempted but failed to capture the Spanish outpost at Mobile, which was situated between the Pearl and the Perdido River, farther to the east. Despite its name, none of the Republic of West Florida was within the borders of the present-day state of Florida, but rather entirely within the present borders of Louisiana.
Republic of West Florida | Boundaries
After the Civil War, major floods swept down the valley in 1865, 1867, 1874 and 1882. Such floods regularly overwhelmed levees damaged by Confederate and Union fighting during the war, as well as those constructed after the war. In 1877, the state created the Mississippi Levee District for southern counties.
Mississippi | Flooding
Aerial views of the Reverie area with superimposed state borders illustrate the course of the Mississippi River in this area before and after the 1876 avulsion. The state line is following the pre-cutoff riverbed as of 1795. In 2007, the Mississippi River was located about 3.5 miles (5,6 km) southeast of the Tennessee/Arkansas state border near Reverie.
Reverie, Tennessee | Notes
The extreme duration of flooding complicated attempts to erect and maintain temporary flood barriers around homes and communities as peak water levels could not be predicted months in advance. Officials in Issaquena County reported that all but 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of 86 miles (138 km) of county roads had been flooded and that some residents had been displaced since February. The Emergency Management Director in Sharkey County reported that 35 county roads were closed and 120 people had been displaced from 72 homes. Portions of state highways 1, 16, and 465 were closed at various times during the flood.
Mississippi River floods of 2019 | Yazoo Backwater Area, Mississippi Delta
The Yazoo River is a river in the U.S. states of Louisiana and Mississippi. It is considered by some to mark the southern boundary of what is called the Mississippi Delta, a broad floodplain that was cultivated for cotton plantations before the American Civil War. It has continued to be devoted to large-scale agriculture.
Yazoo River | Introduction
In July, severe flooding of the Mississippi River resulted from a hurricane landfall.
Mississippi River floods | Flood of 1788
Hernando DeSoto's party was passing through a village at the confluence of the Mississippi River and Arkansas River on March 18 when the rivers flooded. The high water only allowed passage by canoe and inundated fields surrounding the town. The flooding reportedly lasted for 40 days.
Floods in the United States before 1901 | Flood of March 1543
The Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the American Revolutionary War but did not clearly determine the boundary between British North America (Canada) and the United States. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts thereafter began issuing land grants in its District of Maine, including areas which the British had already laid claim. Questions regarding the boundary line arose not long afterward, and the negotiators of the 1794 Jay Treaty agreed that a commission should determine the source of the St. Croix River, the principal geographical feature identified in the earlier treaty. The parties sent a collaborative survey team to locate the mouth of the proper river, and to establish its headwaters.
Aroostook War | Disputed border
A few days earlier, Hurricane Camille had come ashore on the Gulf Coast near the mouth of the Mississippi River as a Category 5 storm, one of only three to strike the US mainland during the 20th century. The hurricane flattened nearly everything along the coast of Mississippi, and caused additional flooding and deaths inland. The storm had lost strength as it crossed hundreds of miles of land, and was downgraded by the National Weather Service to tropical storm status as it moved northward along the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains and into Virginia. It still carried incredible amounts of moisture and contained sufficient strength and low pressure to pull in additional moisture.
Tye River | History
The river below the junction with the Tensas at is called the Black River and flows for in Catahoula and Concordia parishes until it joins the Red River, which flows into both the Atchafalaya River and the Mississippi River, via the Old River Control Structure.
Ouachita River | Black River
The case involves the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin, which includes three major rivers in the southeast United States. The Chattahoochee River runs from the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains in northern Georgia and runs south-southwest and towards the Gulf of Mexico; it forms the state border between Georgia and Alabama. The Flint River forms from groundwater seepage in northern Georgia, and also runs south-southwest until it meets with the Chattahoochee at the southern edge of both Georgia and Alabama. The combined rivers become the Apalachicola River which then crosses Florida's panhandle and empties into Apalachicola Bay, an estuary abutting the Gulf.
Florida v. Georgia (2018) | Background
Lands along the Mississippi River near present-day Natchez, Mississippi had been settled during the British administration of West Florida, and had a strong Loyalist presence. Some Georgia authorities and speculators thought these developed lands could be seized.
Yazoo land scandal | Background
The State of Mississippi was represented by Carl F. Andre. Mississippi argued that the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek ended the federal oversight of Choctaw Indians who remained in the state after 1833. The state claimed that "Mississippi Choctaw citizens did not become a tribe, did not live on a reservation in Indian country, and did not become wards of the federal government as a result of the Indian Reorganization Act (1934) and a proclamation of the Department of Interior (1944)." Since they are not tribal members, the provisions of the Major Crimes Act do not apply, and the state has jurisdiction.
United States v. John (1978) | State of Mississippi
The Mississippi River floods in April and May 2011 were among the largest and most damaging along the U.S. waterway in the past century, rivalling major floods in 1927 and 1993. In April 2011, two major storm systems dumped record rainfall on the Mississippi River watershed. Rising from springtime snowmelt, the river and many of its tributaries began to swell to record levels by the beginning of May. Areas along the Mississippi itself experiencing flooding include Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. U.S. President Barack Obama declared the western counties of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi federal disaster areas.
Mississippi River floods | Great Mississippi Flood of 2011
While they help prevent flooding, they also inhibit agriculture from prospering in some of the surrounding areas.
Mississippi River System | Flooding
The coastal area is the nation's largest drainage basin and drains about 41% of the contiguous United States into the Gulf of Mexico at an average rate of .
Mississippi River Delta | Introduction
Their angled boundary stopped at the Tennessee River). Congress delineated the boundary between Mississippi and Alabama by dividing the territory into approximately equal-sized parts, similar in size to Georgia. The agriculturally productive lands were divided by a straight line running south from the northwest corner of Washington County (as it was defined at the time) to the Gulf of Mexico. The border north of this point was angled westward in order to keep Mississippi and Alabama roughly equal in size. At its northern end, this angled border follows a short section of the Tennessee River. Congress chose this boundary because if the straight line had been run all the way to the Tennessee border Mississippi would have jurisdiction over a small piece of hilly land cut off from the rest of the state by the wide Tennessee River.
Mississippi Territory | Borders
Furthermore, the rivers changed course periodically. It would take many years before the location of the border would be fully determined. South of the 32nd parallel north, the Spanish Empire and the United States settled for the U.S. claim along the Sabine River. Between the meridians 94°2′45" and 100° west, the parties settled on the Spanish claim along the Red River. West of the 100th meridian west, the parties settled on the Spanish claim along the Arkansas River. From the source of the Arkansas River in the Rocky Mountains, the parties settled on a border due north along that meridian (106°20′37″W) to the 42nd parallel north, thence west along the 42nd parallel to the Pacific Ocean.
Adams–Onís Treaty | Border
Following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, much effort has been invested in building defenses to withstand a flood of three million cubic feet per second just upstream from the Old River Control Structure. The US Army Corps of Engineers refers to this design goal as Project Flood. the expected flow will be on the high side, but still within that maximum capacity, assuming everything works as expected.
2011 Mississippi River floods | Louisiana
In addition to the Ohio River, the major tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River are the White River, flowing in at the White River National Wildlife Refuge in east central Arkansas; the Arkansas River, joining the Mississippi at Arkansas Post; the Big Black River in Mississippi; and the Yazoo River, meeting the Mississippi at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The widest point of the Mississippi River is in the Lower Mississippi portion where it exceeds in width in several places. Deliberate water diversion at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana allows the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana to be a major distributary of the Mississippi River, with 30% of the combined flow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico by this route, rather than continuing down the Mississippi's current channel past Baton Rouge and New Orleans on a longer route to the Gulf.
Mississippi River | Lower Mississippi
and Spain and defined the boundaries between the U.S. and the Spanish colonies. The treaty guaranteed the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River.
Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet | U.S. expansion
After the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the engineering policy on the Mississippi River changed from building levees high enough to withstand the greatest recorded flood to include floodways. The Flood Control Act of 1928 authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to construct the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri and the Morganza Spillway and Bonnet Carre Spillway in Louisiana. Even before its authorization, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway was the subject of controversy. In June 1927, President Calvin Coolidge instructed the Mississippi River Commission and the Corps of Engineers to develop a plan to protect the Mississippi alluvial valley from future floods.
Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway | History
The political border between Tennessee and Arkansas was established in the ""Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation"", signed by the United States and the Kingdom of Spain, on October 27, 1795 following the ""middle of the channel or bed of the Mississippi River"" as of that time. The Arkansas and Tennessee state line remained unchanged by the tectonic events of 1811 and 1812, still marking the middle of the Mississippi River as it was in 1795.
Corona, Tennessee | Tennessee/Arkansas state line
Hernando de Soto's party was passing through a village at the confluence of the Mississippi River and Arkansas River on March 18. The ensuing flood only allowed passage by canoe and inundated fields surrounding the town. The flooding reportedly lasted for 40 days.
Mississippi River floods | Flood of March 1543
In 1779 and 1780, surveyors were sent to mark the line on the ground as far as the Tennessee River. As they worked west their line drifted north until by the time they reached the river they were about 10′ north of 36°30′. Despite this error the boundary was set along the line surveyed. The final part of the Kentucky-Tennessee boundary, between the Tennessee River and the Mississippi River, was not surveyed until after 1819 when treaties extinguished Indian claims in the area. The final portion was surveyed east from the Mississippi River along 36°30′. Due to the relative precision of the survey of 36°30′ on the Mississippi River, Congress decided to continue the line west as the northern boundary of Arkansas Territory, with the exception of the Missouri Bootheel.
Parallel 36°30′ north | In the United States
The parties had agreed that the state line was the thalweg, or steamboat channel, of the Mississippi River as it flows west and southward between the states. Nordbye heard evidence and was presented exhibits and maps which showed that the migration of the Mississippi River northward and west continued until about 1912. At that time, an avulsion occurred leaving Tennessee lands on the west or Arkansas side of the new or avulsive river channel. Nordbye found that, thereafter, because of the avulsion, the water in the thalweg became stagnant, and erosion and accretion no longer occurred. At this time, the boundary between Arkansas and Tennessee became fixed in the middle of the old abandoned channel.
Arkansas v. Tennessee | Result
In March 1876, the Mississippi suddenly changed course near the settlement of Reverie, Tennessee, leaving a small part of Tipton County, Tennessee, attached to Arkansas and separated from the rest of Tennessee by the new river channel. Since this event was an avulsion, rather than the effect of incremental erosion and deposition, the state line still follows the old channel. The town of Kaskaskia, Illinois once stood on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia (Okaw) Rivers. Founded as a French colonial community, it later became the capital of the Illinois Territory and was the first state capital of Illinois until 1819.
Mississippi River | Historic course changes
Because of substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees, locks and dams, often built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent the lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans.
Mississippi River | Introduction
The road crossing highest on the Upper Mississippi is a simple steel culvert, through which the river (locally named "Nicolet Creek") flows north from Lake Nicolet under "Wilderness Road" to the West Arm of Lake Itasca, within Itasca State Park. The earliest bridge across the Mississippi River was built in 1855. It spanned the river in Minneapolis where the current Hennepin Avenue Bridge is located. No highway or railroad tunnels cross under the Mississippi River. The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi was built in 1856. It spanned the river between the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois and Davenport, Iowa.
Mississippi River | Bridge crossings
In Tunica County, nine casinos located on stationary river barges were closed most of May. The hotel portion of the casinos are located on adjacent, low-lying land, and began to flood with the rising waters, some up to 6 feet. Near Vicksburg, Highway 465 in Warren and Issaquena counties was closed on May 3 due to high flood waters. North-south access to and from Vicksburg was cut off for more than two weeks. U.S. Highway 61 between Vicksburg and Port Gibson was closed by backwater flooding along the Big Black River on May 12; it reopened June 1. Another portion of U.S.
2011 Mississippi River floods | Mississippi
The Corps now actively creates and maintains spillways and floodways to divert periodic water surges into backwater channels and lakes, as well as route part of the Mississippi's flow into the Atchafalaya Basin and from there to the Gulf of Mexico, bypassing Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The main structures are the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway in Missouri; the Old River Control Structure and the Morganza Spillway in Louisiana, which direct excess water down the west and east sides (respectively) of the Atchafalaya River; and the Bonnet Carré Spillway, also in Louisiana, which directs floodwaters to Lake Pontchartrain (see diagram).
Mississippi River | 21st century
Subsidence: In the absence of riverine sediment inputs to counteract it, net subsidence in the Mississippi River Delta occurs at a much faster rate than in other areas of the United States. Researchers suggest that subsidence may be further exacerbated through fluid extraction by the gas and oil industry. Hurricanes and storms: Coastal wetlands and barrier islands are the first line of protection for Louisiana communities and cities from hurricanes and storm surge. However, as these landscapes are weakened, they become more vulnerable to strong winds and flooding. For example, following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, approximately of wetlands became open water, demonstrating permanent wetland loss.
Mississippi River Delta | Natural threats
The water began rising against the levees on the east bank of Plaquemines near the Caernarvon freshwater diversion at Braithwaite. The structure allows fresh water from the Mississippi River to flow into the marsh on the east side of the river. Parish officials noticed the water in the river was not rising at the same rate. After consulting the Army Corps of Engineers, a quick decision was made to open the floodgates to permit the rising water flow into the Mississippi, relieving pressure on the levees. In February 2009, Governor Bobby Jindal appointed Nungesser to the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, a 20-member panel assigned to develop a master plan on coastal protection for the state.
Billy Nungesser | 2008 hurricanes
The list of rivers in Mississippi includes any rivers that flow through part of the State of Mississippi. The major rivers in Mississippi are the Mississippi River, Pearl River, Pascagoula River and the Tombigbee River, along with their main tributaries: the Tallahatchie River, Yazoo River, Big Black River, Leaf River, and the Chickasawhay River. However, other tributaries vary in size, with some also draining rather sizable areas of Mississippi ("Also see list below:" Alphabetically). The various rivers, with their tributaries, can be organized by drainage basin, as shown in the related maps below.
List of rivers of Mississippi | Introduction
Prior to the decision to open more gates on the spillway, the Corps studied four flooding scenarios, all of which assumed the Bonnet Carré Spillway near New Orleans would be concurrently operating at full capacity (100%).
2011 Mississippi River floods | Morganza Spillway and Atchafalaya Basin
Thus just a short distance from the river, the flood plain is often swampy, unless its surface is there aggraded by the tributary streams. For this reason Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi rank immediately after Florida in swamp area.
Gulf Coastal Plain | Mississippi drainage basin
Located between parallels 22° 03′ and 25° 20′ of South latitude and the meridians 57° 15′ and 61° 00′ of longitude West.
Presidente Hayes Department | Borders
It was finished in 2011, and is far more significant than the Bayou La Loutre closure structure. It is two feet lower than the levees it will connect to in New Orleans East and St. Bernard Parish. This will allow water to spill over the control structure before it overtops these levees.
Mississippi River–Gulf Outlet Canal | Surge Barrier
This is a list of longest rivers in the United States by state. It includes rivers that pass through the state or compose a portion of the state's border, as well as rivers entirely contained within the state.
List of longest rivers in the United States by state | Introduction
Inasmuch as the Wisconsin glaciation formed lobes that met (and blocked) where the Mississippi now flows, and given that huge amounts of glacial meltwater were flowing into the Driftless Area, and that there is no lakebed, it is assumed that there were instances of ice dams bursting.
Upper Mississippi River | History
The Red River is the 10th longest river in the United States with a length of 1,290 miles. It originates right outside of the Rocky Mountains and stretches through multiple states with the main portion of it located in Texas. The river also crosses through Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana where then it links into the Mississippi River. The Red River is mostly surrounded by rural farm land with the only surrounding major cities being Shreveport, Louisiana and Alexandria, Louisiana. The Red River is home to many oil fields with oil and gas production being one of the river's major aspects.
Mississippi River System | Red River
Many Loyalist refugees from the American Revolutionary War resettled in Saint John at the mouth of the river and in Sainte-Anne des Pays-Bas which was renamed Fredericton. The Saint Croix River formed the Atlantic coastal boundary at the close of the war keeping the Saint John River in Canada while the Penobscot River was allocated to Massachusetts. The Treaty of Paris (1783) defined the eastern boundary of Massachusetts as a line drawn due north from the source of St. Croix River to the drainage divide of the Saint Lawrence River. Persistent hostilities with the Wolastoqiyik had prevented the English treaty signatories from mapping the river headwaters.
Wolastoq | International boundary dispute
The Lower Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico allows ocean shipping to connect with the barge traffic, thereby making this segment vital to both the domestic and foreign trade of the United States. The Mississippi River System is connected to the Illinois Waterway, which continues to the Great Lakes Waterway and then to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Many other eastern rivers are navigable as well, including the Potomac, the Hudson, and the Atchafalaya Rivers, which are all dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Inland waterways of the United States | Extent
Normally, floods on the Lower Mississippi River occur in the winter and spring, and thus are unlikely to overlap with the Atlantic hurricane season. The development in early July of 2019 of the storm that would become Hurricane Barry briefly prompted concerns that a storm surge propagating up the Mississippi River could increase already high river stages and overtop river levees as far upstream as New Orleans, Louisiana. On 13 July 2019, Hurricane Barry came ashore as a minimal hurricane near Intracoastal City, Louisiana over west of New Orleans. The resulting storm surge and heavy rains briefly increased river stages at New Orleans from about to nearly .
Mississippi River floods of 2019 | Hurricane Barry
The refuge consists of blufflands, marshes, bottomland forest, islands, channels, backwater lakes and sloughs. It is part of the Mississippi Flyway. Although the river is much cleaner than it was in recent decades, water quality is still a priority concern. Agricultural runoff, including sediment, excessive nutrients, (particularly nitrogen and phosphorus), and chemicals from agricultural and industrial sources continue to threaten Upper Mississippi River aquatic resources. In addition new threats continue to emerge such as personal care items including pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The five states bordering the Upper Mississippi River are working together to address water quality issues.
Upper Mississippi River | Ecology