Rio Grande

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“Río Bravo” redirects here. For other uses, see Río Bravo (disambiguation).

For other uses, see Rio Grande (disambiguation).

Rio Grande
Map of the Rio Grande Watershed
Origin	southern Colorado, in Saguache County
Mouth	Gulf of Mexico; Cameron County, Texas, and Matamoros municipality, Tamaulipas
Basin countries	United States, Mexico
Length	3034 km (1885 mi)
Source elevation	3,900 m (13,000 feet) at source to sea level at mouth
Avg. discharge	averages 160m³/sec
Basin area	607,965 km²

Known as the Rio Grande in the United States and as the Río Bravo (or, more formally, the Río Bravo del Norte) in Mexico, the river, 1,885 mi (3,034 km) long, is the third longest river system in the United States.^[1]

1 Description
2 Names and pronunciation
3 Literature
- 3.1 In Fiction
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Description

The Rio Grande rises in the San Juan Mountains of the U.S. state of Colorado, flows through the San Luis Valley, then south into New Mexico through Albuquerque and Las Cruces to El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.–Mexico border. A major tributary, the Río Conchos, enters at Ojinaga, Chihuahua, below El Paso, and supplies most of the water in the 1,254 mi (2,019 km) Texas border segment. Other known tributaries include the Pecos and the smaller Devils, which join the Rio Grande on the site of Amistad Dam. Despite its name and length, the Rio Grande is not navigable at all by oceangoing ships, nor are there smaller craft using it as a route. In fact it is barely navigable at all.

The river has, since 1845, marked the boundary between Mexico and the United States from the twin cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, to the Gulf of Mexico. As such, it was across this river that Texan slaves fled when seeking their freedom, aided by Mexico's liberal colonization policies and abolitionist stance.^[2]

The major international border crossings along the river are Ciudad Juárez and El Paso; Presidio, Texas and Ojinaga, Chihuahua; Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; McAllen-Hidalgo, Texas, and Reynosa, Tamaulipas; and Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros. Other notable border towns are the Texas/Coahuila pairings of Del Rio–Ciudad Acuña and Eagle Pass–Piedras Negras.

The Rio Grande flowing in Big Bend National Park

The US and Mexico share the waters of this river under a series of agreements administered by the joint US-Mexico Boundary and Water Commission. The most notable of these were signed in 1906 and 1944.

Use of that belonging to the US is regulated by the Rio Grande Compact, an interstate pact between Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. The Rio Grande is over-appropriated, that is, there are more users for the water than there is water in the river. Because of both drought and overuse the section from El Paso downstream through Ojinaga was recently tagged "The Forgotten River" by those wishing to bring attention to the river's deteriorated condition.

During the summer of 2001 a 100m wide sandbar formed at the mouth of the river, marking the first time in recorded history that the Rio Grande failed to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The sandbar was subsequently dredged, but it re-formed almost immediately. Spring rains the following year flushed the re-formed sandbar out to sea, but it was back by summer 2002. Since then the sandbar has remained and now forms a usable land bridge between the US and Mexico. Ecologists fear that unless rainfall returns to normal levels during the next few years and strict water conservation measures are adopted by communities along the river, the Rio Grande may soon become extinct.

The Rio Grande rises in high mountains and flows for much of its length at high elevation; El Paso is 3762 ft (1147 m) above sea level. In New Mexico, the river flows through the Rio Grande Rift from one sediment-filled basin to another, cutting canyons between the basins and supporting a fragile bosque ecosystem in its floodplain.

The Upper Rio Grande near Creede, Colorado

From El Paso eastward the river flows through desert. Only in the sub-tropical lower Rio Grande Valley is there extensive irrigated agriculture. The river ends in a small sandy delta at the Gulf of Mexico. Due to the persistent period of dry weather, the river has only occasionally emptied into the Gulf Of Mexico since 2002. Google Satellite Map

Millions of years ago, the Rio Grande ended at the bottom of the Rio Grande Rift in Lake Cabeza de Vaca. But about one million years ago the stream was "captured" and began to flow east.

The Rio Grande was designated as one of the American Heritage Rivers in 1997.

[edit] Names and pronunciation

Río Grande is Spanish for "Big River" and Río Grande del Norte means "Great Northern River" (literally "Great River of the North"). Rio Grande is pronounced either /ɹioʊ gɹænd/ or /ɹioʊ gɹændi/ (where "Grande" is pronounced like the English word "grand") by English speakers. Because "río" means "river" in Spanish, the phrase "Rio Grande River" is redundant. In Mexico it is known as "Río Bravo."

The Rio Grande in its lower course, between Matamoros (right side) and Brownsville (left side)

[edit] Literature

Paul Horgan, Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History. Volume 1, Indians and Spain. Vol. 2, Mexico and the United States. 2 Vols. in 1, 1038 pages - Wesleyan University Press 1991, 4th Reprint, ISBN 0-8195-6251-3

The Rio Grande at Bernalillo, New Mexico, with the Sandia Mountains

[edit] In Fiction

In Star Trek there was a Starfleet Runabout called the USS Rio Grande assigned to Deep Space Nine. All Starfleet Runabouts are named after Earth rivers.