River · United States, Mexico
Colorado River
The Colorado River rises in the Rocky Mountains and flows through the southwest of the USA into Mexico. On its way it runs through the Grand Canyon, a canyon about 1.6 kilometres deep.
Picture credit: Thomas Wolf (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Christian David (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Frank Schulenburg (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Colorado River?
The river starts here: La Poudre Pass, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA.
It ends in the Gulf of California, Mexico.
Countries on the river: the United States, Mexico.
The story behind it
The Colorado begins at La Poudre Pass in Rocky Mountain National Park. On its way to the sea it flows about 446 kilometres through the Grand Canyon, between cliffs whose oldest rocks are about 1.8 billion years old. In 1869 John Wesley Powell and nine men became the first non-native explorers to travel the whole length of the canyon. In the river lives the humpback chub, a fish that grows a hump behind its head and can live for 30 years. The name Colorado comes from Spanish and means 'coloured reddish', because the river carries a lot of silt, which is fine mud. Big dams such as the Hoover Dam hold back its water in huge lakes like Lake Mead. Around 40 million people rely on this water, so today the river only rarely reaches the Gulf of California.
Questions children ask
How long is the Colorado River?
The Colorado River is about 2 330 km long. It flows from the Rocky Mountains in the US state of Colorado to the Gulf of California in Mexico.
Why does the Colorado River rarely reach the sea?
So much of its water is taken for around 40 million people that very little is left at the end. Since the 1960s the river has only rarely reached the Gulf of California, and its lowest part is often dry.
What does the name Colorado mean?
Colorado is Spanish and means 'coloured reddish'. The river got this name because it carries a lot of silt that colours the water.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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