Mississippi
River
The great river that runs down the middle of the United States.
The Mississippi starts in the north as a stream you can step across, and flows about 3,770 kilometres south to the sea near New Orleans.
Water from 31 of the 50 American states ends up in it. For two hundred years it has been the country's great highway for boats: first rafts and paddle steamers, today long trains of barges.
- long
- 3,770 km
- states send their water to it
- 31
- a drop of water takes from source to sea
- 90 days
- 1
The name comes from the Ojibwe people and means great river.
- 2
The writer Mark Twain worked as a pilot on the river's steamboats before he wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
- 3
At its source the river is so small that children wade across it.
Question 1 of 2
What does the name Mississippi mean?
- Chichén ItzáA Maya city with a pyramid that works as a calendar.
- TikalA city of the Maya in the jungle of Guatemala, with temples that rise above the trees.
- TeotihuacanA city of pyramids so old that even the Aztecs did not know who built it.
- Niagara FallsThree waterfalls on the border between Canada and the United States.
It is in the United States.
Read about the United States