A ravine is a

landform A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, ...

that is narrower than a

canyon A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

and is often the product of

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...

bank

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

.Definition of "ravine"
at

Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States. In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as ...

Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than

gullies A gully is a landform created by running water, mass movement, or commonly a combination of both eroding sharply into soil or other relatively erodible material, typically on a hillside or in river floodplains or terraces. Gullies resemble lar ...

, although smaller than

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

s. Ravines may also be called a cleuch, dell, ghout (

Nevis Nevis is a small island in the Caribbean Sea that forms part of the inner arc of the Leeward Islands chain of the West Indies. Nevis and the neighbouring island of Saint Kitts constitute one country: the Federation of Saint Kitts and Ne ...

), gill or ghyll,

glen A glen is a valley, typically one that is long and bounded by gently sloped concave sides, unlike a ravine, which is deep and bounded by steep slopes. Whittow defines it as a "Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is "narrower ...

gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

, kloof (

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

), and

chine A chine () is a steep-sided coastal gorge where a river flows to the sea through, typically, soft eroding cliffs of sandstone or clays. The word is still in use in central Southern England—notably in East Devon, Dorset, Hampshire and the Isl ...

(

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Isle of ...

) A ravine is generally a

fluvial In geography and geology, fluvial processes are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them. When the stream or rivers are associated with glaciers, ice sheets, or ice caps, the term glaciofluvial or fluviog ...

slope landform of relatively steep (cross-sectional) sides, on the order of twenty to seventy percent in

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gradi ...

. Ravines may or may not have active streams flowing along the downslope channel which originally formed them; moreover, often they are characterized by intermittent streams, since their geographic scale may not be sufficiently large to support a

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

watercourse A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams are ...

Notable ravines

Babi Yar Babi Yar (russian: Ба́бий Яр) or Babyn Yar ( uk, Бабин Яр) is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The fi ...

, Ukraine *

Bam Bam Amphitheaters The Bam Bam Amphitheaters are large erosional ravines found in Wonga-Wongue Presidential Reserve in western Gabon. Although they are referred to as " cirques," they are unrelated to the glacial cirques of high latitudes and mountains. In Gabon, th ...

, Gabon *

Barranco de Badajoz The Barranco de Badajoz or Chamoco is a ravine on the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, part of the municipality of Güímar in the southeast of the island.

, Spain *

Barranco del Infierno ''Barranco'' (), which is Spanish for "ravine", may refer to: Places * Barranco, Belize, a village in Toledo District, Belize * Barranco, Spain, a village south of Jijona, Alicante, Spain *Barranco District, Peru *Barranco de Loba, Colombia Pers ...

, Spain * Gravina Ravine, Italy *

Moola Chotok Moola Chotok (Urdu:) is a hidden ravine located in the middle of the Khuzdar District in the southern province of Balochistan, Pakistan. It is situated approximately north-east of Khuzdar at an elevation of . Surrounded by tall cliffs, the casca ...

, Pakistan *

Ravenna Park Ravenna Park and Cowen Park comprise a single contiguous recreation and green space in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle, Washington in the United States. These public parks encompass the ravine with a maximum depth of through which Ravenna Cr ...

, United States *

Rauðfeldsgjá Rauðfeldsgjá () is a ravine in Snæfellsnes Peninsula in Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Ice ...

, Iceland * Stuðlagil, Iceland *

Taishaku Valley is a ravine in Japan noted for its beauty. Overview Taishaku Valley is an 18 km-long ravine along the Taishaku River, one of the tributaries of the Takahashi River in Shōbara and Jinsekikōgen, Hiroshima, Japan. The valley is a part of ...

, Japan *

Toronto ravine system The Toronto ravine system is a distinctive feature of the city's geography, consisting of a network of deep ravines, which forms a large urban forest that runs through most of Toronto. The ravine system is the largest in any city in the world, w ...

, Canada

References

External links

* * Erosion landforms Fluvial landforms Slope landforms Oronyms {{topography-stub