According to the UK’s Daily Mail, the map was created by Imgur user Fejetlenfej, a geographer and GIS analyst with a “lifelong passion for beautiful maps.” Visualizing the Strahler Stream Order Classification, with higher stream orders indicated as thicker lines, the map highlights the river basins across the country – in particular, those which feed the Mississippi River.
It was created using the open-source QGIS software, with the high resolution prints available on Etsy
There are 18 major river basins in the contiguous US, but 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, as seen in pink.
The top left portion of the map shows much of the Pacific Northwest basin, illustrated in a brownish-orange color. The Upper and Lower Colorado River basins stand out in bright yellow. At the top of the map, the Souris-Red-Rainy Basin and the Great Lakes Basin are illustrated in green. The map also shows the Rio Grande basin in blue, snaking between the Colorado Basin and the Arkansas-White-Red Basin. Along the east and west coasts, a jumble of rainbow colors reveals the smaller systems that border the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
The contiguous U.S.’s 18 major river basins:
1.) Pacific Northwest Basin
2.) California River Basin
3.) Great Basin
4.) Lower Colorado River Basin
5.) Upper Colorado River Basin
6.) Rio Grande River Basin
7.) Texas Gulf Coast Basin
8.) Arkansas-White-Red Basin
9.) Lower Mississippi River Basin
10.) Missouri River Basin
11.) Souris-Red-Rainy Basin
12.) Upper Mississippi Basin
13.) Great Lakes Basin
14.) Tennessee River Basin
15.) Ohio River Basin
16.) South Atlantic-Gulf Basin
17.) Mid-Atlantic Basin
18.) New England Basin
Read more HERE
