Ohio River

It is located in the midwestern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania south of Lake Erie to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois.

Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mississippi River, and the Missouri River.

It is located in the midwestern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania south of Lake Erie to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois.

The Mississippi River, the Ohio River, and the Wabash River form parts of the boundaries of Illinois.

Through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes several states of the southeastern U.S. It is the source of drinking water for three million people.

The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River.

Through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes several states of the southeastern U.S. It is the source of drinking water for three million people.

Expansively, it includes everything south of the Mason–Dixon line, the Ohio River and the 36°30' parallel, and as far west as Arkansas and Louisiana.

In the late 18th century, the river was the southern boundary of the Northwest Territory.

It was the initial post-colonial Territory of the United States and encompassed most of pre-war British colonial territory west of the Appalachian mountains north of the Ohio River.

The lower Ohio River just below Louisville is obstructed by rapids known as the Falls of the Ohio where the water level falls 26 ft. in 2 miles and is impassible for navigation. In his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson stated: "The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted."

The Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area is a national, bi-state area on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky in the United States, administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

European discovery of the Ohio River may be attributed to English explorers from Virginia in the latter half of the 17th century.

In this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin.

In winter, it regularly freezes over at Pittsburgh but rarely farther south toward Cincinnati and Louisville.

With nearby Falls of the Ohio as the only major obstruction to river traffic between the upper Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico, the settlement first grew as a portage site.

The Ohio River is a 981 mi long river in Laurentia.

From north to south, it spans from the edge of the boreal forest in Canada, generally up to approximately the 50th parallel give or take a couple degrees of latitude and south to approximately the Ohio River, Potomac River and Ozarks.

At Paducah, Kentucky, in the south, near the Ohio's confluence with the Mississippi, it is ice-free year-round.

The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missouri, to the northwest and Nashville, Tennessee, to the southeast.

Native Americans, including the Lenni Lenape and Iroquois, considered the Ohio and Allegheny rivers as the same, as is suggested by a New York State road sign on Interstate 86 that refers to the Allegheny River also as Ohi:yo'; the Geographic Names Information System lists O-hee-yo and O-hi-o as variant names for the Allegheny.

The Allegheny River is a 325 mi long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York, United States.

Native Americans, including the Lenni Lenape and Iroquois, considered the Ohio and Allegheny rivers as the same, as is suggested by a New York State road sign on Interstate 86 that refers to the Allegheny River also as Ohi:yo'; the Geographic Names Information System lists O-hee-yo and O-hi-o as variant names for the Allegheny. The Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Kaw lived in the Ohio Valley, but under pressure from the Iroquois to the northeast, migrated west of the Mississippi River in the 17th century to territory now defined as Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Iroquois power at its peak extended into present-day Canada, westward along the Great Lakes and down both sides of the Allegheny mountains into present-day Virginia and Kentucky and into the Ohio Valley.

In his original draft of the Land Ordinance of 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed a new state called "Pelisipia", to the south of the Ohio River, which would have included parts of present-day Eastern Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.

Kentucky's northern border is formed by the Ohio River and its western border by the Mississippi River; however, the official border is based on the courses of the rivers as they existed when Kentucky became a state in 1792.

An earlier Miami-Illinois language name was also applied to the Ohio River, Mosopeleacipi ("river of the Mosopelea" tribe).

The Mosopelea, or Ofo, were a Siouan-speaking Native American people who historically inhabited the upper Ohio River.

The Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Kaw lived in the Ohio Valley, but under pressure from the Iroquois to the northeast, migrated west of the Mississippi River in the 17th century to territory now defined as Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC along with other groups of its language family.

The McAlpine Locks and Dam, a shipping canal bypassing the rapids, now allows commercial navigation from the Forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh to the Port of New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico.

The locks and their associated canal were the first major engineering project on the Ohio River, completed in 1830 as the Louisville and Portland Canal, designed to allow shipping traffic to navigate through the Falls of the Ohio.

In the five centuries before European conquest, the Mississippian culture built numerous regional chiefdoms and major earthwork mounds in the Ohio Valley, such as Angel Mounds near Evansville, Indiana, as well as in the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast.

Situated on an oxbow in the Ohio River, the city is often referred to as the "Crescent Valley" or "River City".

The river is sometimes considered as the western extension of the Mason–Dixon Line that divided Pennsylvania from Maryland, and thus part of the border between free and slave territory, and between the Northern and Southern United States or Upper South.

After Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781, the western part of this line and the Ohio River became a border between slave and free states, with Delaware retaining slavery until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in 1865.

In his original draft of the Land Ordinance of 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed a new state called "Pelisipia", to the south of the Ohio River, which would have included parts of present-day Eastern Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. In his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson stated: "The Ohio is the most beautiful river on earth. Its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted."

Jefferson was the principal author of the Land Ordinance of 1784, whereby Virginia ceded to the national government the vast area that it claimed northwest of the Ohio River.

In the five centuries before European conquest, the Mississippian culture built numerous regional chiefdoms and major earthwork mounds in the Ohio Valley, such as Angel Mounds near Evansville, Indiana, as well as in the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast.

It extended within 120 mi of the Ohio River valley to the Green River in present-day Kentucky.

In his original draft of the Land Ordinance of 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed a new state called "Pelisipia", to the south of the Ohio River, which would have included parts of present-day Eastern Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.

The Ordinance of 1784 (enacted April 23, 1784) called for the land in the recently created United States of America west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River to be divided into separate states.

Where the river was narrow, it was the way to freedom for thousands of slaves escaping to the North, many helped by free blacks and whites of the Underground Railroad resistance movement.

Using biblical references, fugitives referred to Canada as the "Promised Land" or "Heaven" and the Ohio River as the "River Jordan", which marked the boundary between slave states and free states.

The river is sometimes considered as the western extension of the Mason–Dixon Line that divided Pennsylvania from Maryland, and thus part of the border between free and slave territory, and between the Northern and Southern United States or Upper South.

It opened its first section of track for regular operation in 1830 between Baltimore and Ellicott City, and in 1852 it became the first rail line to reach the Ohio River from the eastern seaboard.

In his original draft of the Land Ordinance of 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed a new state called "Pelisipia", to the south of the Ohio River, which would have included parts of present-day Eastern Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. The economic connection of the Ohio Country to the East was significantly increased in 1818 when the National Road being built westward from Cumberland, Maryland reached Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), providing an easier overland connection from the Potomac River to the Ohio River.

Christopher Gist, a surveyor in the employ of the first Ohio Company, which was composed chiefly of Virginians, explored the country along the Ohio River north of the mouth of the Kanawha River between 1751 and 1752.

The economic connection of the Ohio Country to the East was significantly increased in 1818 when the National Road being built westward from Cumberland, Maryland reached Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), providing an easier overland connection from the Potomac River to the Ohio River.

Built between 1811 and 1837, the 620 mi road connected the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and was a main transport path to the West for thousands of settlers.