A total of seventy streams that are at least long flow through the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

. All of these streams originate in the United States except the

Kootenai River The Kootenay or Kootenai river is a major river in the Northwest Plateau, in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, and northern Montana and Idaho in the United States. It is one of the uppermost major tributaries of the Columbia River, the l ...

(third-longest) and the

Moyie River The Moyie River is a long tributary of the Kootenai River (spelled Kootenay River in Canada) in the U.S. state of Idaho and the Canadian province of British Columbia. The Moyie River is part of the Columbia River basin, being a tributary of t ...

(thirty-first-longest), both of which begin in the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. At , the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Snake ...

is the longest and the only stream of more than in total length. It begins in

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

and flows through Idaho for , and then through

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. Some of the other streams also cross borders between Idaho and

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, Oregon,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, Washington, or Wyoming, but the majority flow entirely within Idaho, the longest of which is the Salmon River at . All but four of the streams lie within the large basin of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

, although the river itself does not flow through Idaho. Consequently, the predominant direction of the state's streamflow is northwest towards the Columbia River and its mouth at the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The only other major drainage basin in Idaho is the

Great Salt Lake The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, particula ...

watershed in the state's southeastern corner, which is part of the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...

and has no outlet to the ocean. The Bear River, the second-longest stream, is within this watershed, along with the Malad River, Deep Creek, and the

Logan River The Logan River ( Yugambeh: ''Dugulumba'') is a perennial river located in the Scenic Rim, Logan and Gold Coast local government areas of the South East region of Queensland, Australia. The -long river is one of the dominant waterways in South ...

. Source data for the table below comes from

topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but historic ...

s created by the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

and published online by

TopoQuest TopoQuest is a free web mapping service built on Open-source software, open source software that provides internet-based topographic maps for most of the United States. The site is one of three internet services used by Wikipedia for providing topo ...

, and on the ''Idaho Road and Recreation Atlas'', the

National Hydrography Dataset The National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) is a digital database of surface water features used to make maps. It contains features such as lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, canals, dams and stream gages for the United States. Description Cartographers ...

, the

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

, and other sources as noted. In the table, total lengths are given in miles (mi) and kilometers (km).

Table

2013-07-07 16 30 58 View north down the Salmon Falls Creek Gorge from Salmon Falls Dam in Idaho

Waterfalls in Riverfront Park along Spokane River, downtown Spokane

Map

Notes

References

Works cited

External links

{{GeoGroup
Map of Idaho streams
published by the

Idaho Department of Environmental Quality The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality is the department of the Idaho state government responsible for administration of state and federal environmental laws and regulations. The main offices of the department are in Boise, six regional off ...

*Longest Streams,longest

Table

Map

See also

Notes

References

Works cited

External links