# Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the primary river and second-longest river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for 2,340 mi (3,766 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km$^2$), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the thirteenth-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.

## Quotes

* Majestic stream! along thy banks, In silent, stately, solemn ranks, The forests stand, and seem with pride To gaze upon thy mighty tide.
** Charles Timothy Brooks, "To the Mississippi", opening lines; The Monthly Miscellany of Religion and Letters, vol. ix, no. 6 (December 1843), p. 335
* Monarch of Rivers in the wide domain Where Freedom writes her signature in stars, And bids her eagle bear the blazing scroll, To usher in the reign of peace and love, Thou mighty Mississippi!
** Sarah Josepha Hale, "The Mississippi", st. 1; The Opal: A Pure Gift for the Holy Days (1848), p. 170
* O grandly flowing river! O silver-gliding river! Thy springing willows shiver In the sunset as of old... O gay, oblivious river! O sunset-kindled river! Do you remember ever The eyes and skies so blue... O stern impassive river! O still unanswering river! The shivering willows quiver As the night-winds moan and rave.
** John Hay, "On the Bluff"; Pike County Ballads and Other Pieces (1871), p. 130
* I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
** Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (wr. 1920; pub. 1926)
* And the Mississippi, an inland main, With its orange-groves and its fields of cane.Sweet, round the tawny river’s mouth, Blew the rare odors of the South.
** Annie Chambers Ketchum, "Brother Antonio", sts. 11, 12; Lotos-flowers, Gathered in Sun and Shadow (1877), p. 48
* The Mississippi of the North! bright stream On whose fair bosom first of all their race, Marquette and Joliet float, and fondly dream Of empires new and heathen brought to grace. How pride and wonder lighted up each face While down the stream the brave explorers sped, Marking the devious windings as they trace The noble river’s wood-environed bed To where Missouri’s waves the gentle waters wed. * * * * * Untamed and restless river! in thy bed, From Cape Girardeau to the delta’s verge, Vibrating waywardly; thy wild waves fed With spoil of shores down-fallen in the surge, And floating forests, which thy waters urge In endless drift into the distant sea, Where thou and all thy hundred confluents merge; In thy long reaching flow still shalt thou be From man’s restraining masonry forever free!
** Edward Reynolds, "The Mississippi"; Poems of America, ed. H. W. Longfellow (1882), p. 123

## See also

* Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
* Rivers