A colorful new map shows the complicated network of rivers and streams in the contiguous United States, dominated, of course, by the Mississippi River catchment area, shown in pink below.
The map was created by Imgur user Fejetlenfej, using open-source QGIS (Geographic Information System) software.

The map creator also used Strahler Stream Order Classification, with higher stream orders indicated as thicker lines.
There are 18 major river basins in the 48 states of the contiguous US, but, as noted above, much of the map is dominated by the massive catchment area for the Mississippi River, including the Upper and Lower Mississippi River Basins, along with Missouri River Basin and the Arkansas-White-Red Basin.
The map is not perfect (note the straight-line, perpendicular, feathery lines within the Great Lakes, rather than solid bodies of water)
as well as the inconsistencies in the Columbia River-Snake River Plain area.
The most exciting part of the map, for me, though, is that all the data were obtained gratis and put on an open-source GIS platform. It makes a dazzling display (overlooking those few issues). And people are buying it on Etsy! Maps getting good press is always exciting.
Maizie (pictured here on her 10th birthday Monday) and I are off to enjoy our 80 degree October day. Maybe we'll even hike streamside ;-) with a stream of consciousness running in our heads. . .
Are you live streaming streams this week? Steph
The map was created by Imgur user Fejetlenfej, using open-source QGIS (Geographic Information System) software.

The map creator also used Strahler Stream Order Classification, with higher stream orders indicated as thicker lines.
There are 18 major river basins in the 48 states of the contiguous US, but, as noted above, much of the map is dominated by the massive catchment area for the Mississippi River, including the Upper and Lower Mississippi River Basins, along with Missouri River Basin and the Arkansas-White-Red Basin.
The map is not perfect (note the straight-line, perpendicular, feathery lines within the Great Lakes, rather than solid bodies of water)
Maizie (pictured here on her 10th birthday Monday) and I are off to enjoy our 80 degree October day. Maybe we'll even hike streamside ;-) with a stream of consciousness running in our heads. . .
Are you live streaming streams this week? Steph
