Arkansas River: Rocky Mountain Headwaters to McClellan-Kerr Navigation Corridor
Descending from 14,000-foot Colorado peaks to Arkansas floodplains over 1,469 miles, the Arkansas River powers one of America's premier interior industrial barge networks.
Flowing **1,469 miles (2,364 kilometers)** through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, the **Arkansas River** is the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi River drainage system. It drains an area of **161,000 square miles (417,000 km²)**.
### Alpine Origins & Royal Gorge
The Arkansas originates high in the Sawatch Range of the Colorado Rockies near Leadville at over 10,000 feet. It flows through steep mountain canyons, slicing through ancient pre-Cambrian granite at the **Royal Gorge**, where 1,000-foot vertical cliffs attract white-water rafters and hydrologists alike.
### McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System (MKARNS)
The lower 445 miles of the river—between Catoosa near Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Mississippi River—is channelized into the **McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System (MKARNS)**:
- Includes **18 locks and dams** creating a stepped water staircase.
- Provides ice-free commercial access for bulk grains, agricultural fertilizers, and petroleum products to deepwater ocean ports on the Gulf.
*Data Source: US Army Corps of Engineers Little Rock District & USGS Arkansas Basin Office.*
Founder & Platform Administrator • The RiverAtlas Geographic Publishing Unit
Ammy Saini is the founder, chief administrator, and lead curator of The RiverAtlas (theriveratlas.info), directing global river hydrography, cartographic mapping datasets, and geographic publication integrity.
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