I was noticing that when I grab and spin the globe, most of the river systems shown on the map disappear (as do the wind flow indicators). But a few major river systems still remain on the map.

In the United States, I thought it was interesting that the Missouri River (which starts in Three Forks, Montana) was chosen as that river. I assume the choice was because this is the longest river, but maybe not quite as well known as the Mississippi river perhaps. And I would guess that not everyone knows the Missouri starts in Montana.

When you let go of the grab, other rivers are redrawn. For the US, that includes the major river systems (including the other major contributors to the Mississippi), which makes sense.

Interesting visualization is all.

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IAmBroom an hour ago | parent [-]

Where the Missouri and Mississippi meet, they each contribute roughly 50% of the water. The Mississippi was better known, so the Missouri became the "tributary" in name.

If the opposite decision had been made, the river would be even longer in the books.

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taftster an hour ago | parent [-]

Interesting. I thought it was because the river emptied into the Gulf closest to the state of Mississippi. Like, it would have been slightly unintuitive to have named it the Missouri River all the way down past those Gulf Coast states. The history of river names and deciding which name continues after a confluence is quite interesting.

	▲	throwup238 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It is an Algonquian name for the river, which the French transliterated when they explored the upper reaches. The whole thing is called the Mississippi river because it was the first to be discovered and named, and the French name stuck (I forgot what the Spanish called it but that name didn’t stick)