Minnesota contains three major drainage basins with waters from Minnesota rivers flowing south, north, or east.[1] These major drainage basins meet in a triple divide point called the Hill of Three Waters, just north of Hibbing, Minnesota.[4]
The Mississippi River drains south to the Gulf of Mexico. In Minnesota, this basin is traditionally subdivided into the following major sub-basins:
Lower portion of the Upper Mississippi River (Below St. Paul). Some of these rivers discharge into the Mississippi within the borders of Minnesota, and some farther south, including the Des Moines River, the Cedar / Iowa River, and others
Tributaries of the Missouri River also have drainage basins in far southwest Minnesota
Water flows to the north in the Hudson Bay/Arctic drainage basin (3,861,400 sq mi (10,001,000 km2)), which includes the Red River of the North drainage basin (111,004 sq mi (287,500 km2)) and Lake of the Woods drainage basin (13,805 sq mi (35,750 km2))—of which 7,285 sq mi (18,870 km2) is in Minnesota.
The Great Lakes Basin to the east includes the Lake Superior drainage basin in Minnesota and Wisconsin (49,300 sq mi (128,000 km2)).[5] Minnesota water flows eastward through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
Table of longest streams
A sortable table below lists the 114 streams flowing in Minnesota that have a total length greater than or equal to 30 miles. The stream's tributary and watershed are given. The source or mouth of some streams is in other U.S. states or Canadian provinces. Other than border rivers, the only rivers that originate in other states are the Little Minnesota River (South Dakota), St. Croix River (Wisconsin), and Upper Tamarack River (Wisconsin). The 21 streams that are not entirely within the state are indicated by a † after the order number. The coordinates and location county of the mouth and source of the stream are indicated, as well as the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Geographic Names Information System ID and other references and notes.[note 2] Lengths and elevations are derived from the National Elevation Dataset or reference to it in the USGS GNIS Database.[6] A link to an Open Street Map template is listed at the top of this article that will generate a map showing the source and mouth coordinates of all of these streams. For consistency and accuracy, the sources for this information are primarily data from the USGS GeoNames and National Elevation database, supplemented by other sources.
Streams with length of 30 miles or longer that flow in Minnesota[7][8][9][10][11]
^In North America, the term watershed is commonly used to mean a drainage basin, though in other English-speaking countries, it is used only in its original sense, that of a drainage divide.
^When locations are not otherwise available, locations are derived from searching Google Maps using Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) source or mouth coordinates.
^ ab"Great Lakes Water Levels"(PDF). United States Army Corps of Engineers. Archived from the original(PDF) on April 18, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2013. The link also has daily elevations for the current month.
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