Colorado River

Type: Concept

As of November 2026, Colorado River has been mentioned in one podcast episode on Stuff You Should Know (Nov 2025). The river’s flooding and diversion (via canal failure/bypass) created the modern Salton Sea and later water allocations reduced inflows, accelerating shrinkage.

The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river, the fifth-longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and th