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About the Mississippi River

Mississippi River in IowaOur great River has influenced life in the Americas for hundreds of years. As human consumption has changed, we have also had a greater, often harmful, impact on the River as well. Because of the River's vast tributary system, you don't have to live on the River to impact its waters. Learn more about the human relationship with the Mississippi River in these five subject-specific fact sheets on River Wildlife, Economies and Communities, Water Quality and Drinking Water, River Flow, and the Dead Zone.

Why It Is Important

The Mississippi River system supports more than 400 species of wildlife, including several endangered species, such as the pallid sturgeon, the alligator gar, the ancient paddlefish, and the Higgins Eye pearlymussel to name just a few.

Why It Is Important

The great Mississippi River system runs through America’s heartland, culture and economy. From forest and mountain headwaters, across prairies, farm fields and savannas, through hundreds of small towns, and some of America’s greatest cities, the River connects lives and livelihoods.

Why It Is Important

More than 18 million people depend on the Mississippi River for drinking water.  Like many of the world’s largest rivers, the Mississippi starts as a clear-water stream in its headwaters, but picks up loads of sediment and becomes a murky, brown river as it flows downstream, earning the river one of its many nicknames: the Big Muddy.

Why It Is Important

The Mississippi River basin is the third largest watershed in the world, after the Amazon and Congo basins, respectively. Through its vast tributary system, the basin reaches from the northern Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachian Mountains in the east.

What It Is

It’s a dreadful name for a dreadful phenomenon caused by the pollution the Mississippi River carries into the Gulf of Mexico. The dead zone describes the area of the Gulf at the mouth of the Mississippi River whose waters can no longer support marine life because it is starved of oxygen.