A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of its course if it runs out of water, or only flow during certain seasons.

River, (ultimately from Latin ripa, “bank”), any natural stream of water that flows in a channel with defined banks . Modern usage includes rivers that are multichanneled, intermittent, or ephemeral in flow and channels that are practically bankless. The concept of channeled surface flow, however,

A river is a large, natural stream of flowing water. Rivers are found on every continent and on nearly every kind of land.

A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, that moves continuously across the landscape from a water source such as a spring, glacier, or runoff basin toward a larger body of water like an ocean, lake, or another river. Rivers are major components of the Earth’s hydrologic cycle and play a vital role in shaping the planet’s surface, supporting ecosystems, and sustaining ...

James C. Scott— What is a river, anyway? For most readers, myself included, the mention of a river’s name—for example, the Mississippi or the Nile—evokes the representation on a map of its major channel, its path through the landscape from its headwaters to the sea when it is “well behaved.” Looked at through specialist lenses, a river takes on particular attributes of interest ...