The Missouri River is one of the longest rivers in the United States second only to the Mississippi.  It's total length is 2,315 miles.  The Missouri travels through seven states as it makes it's way to St. Louis, Mo. where it meets with the Mississippi.

   The Missouri has the nickname "Big Muddy," because of the large amount of silt that it carries.  It also has a large number of tributaries feeding into it along it's path.  The total basin that drains into the river covers 530,000 square miles.

   The Missouri River drains one-sixth of the United States flowing from from its headwaters at the confluence of the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson Rivers in the Rocky Mountains at Three Forks, Montana, to its confluence with the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri.

   The basin is home to about 10 million people from 28 Native American tribes, 10 states (Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming), and a small part of Canada.

Precipitation in the basin varies from an annual mean of 40 inches in the interior highlands of the Missouri Ozarks to 10 inches in the dry upland plains of North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. The basin’s elevation drops from 14,000 foot peaks at its northwestern boundary to about 400 feet where it joins the Mississippi.