Des Plaines River
The Des Plaines River (/dɛsˈpleɪnz/) is a river that flows southward for 133 miles (214 km) through southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois in the United States Midwest, eventually meeting the Kankakee River west of Channahon to form the Illinois River, a tributary of the Mississippi River.
| Des Plaines River | |
|---|---|
Typical section of Des Plaines River in Lake County, Illinois. | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | West of Kenosha, Kenosha County, Wisconsin |
| • coordinates | 42.6736°N 88.0265°W |
| Mouth | |
• location | Illinois River |
• coordinates | 41.3898°N 88.2549°W |
| Length | 133 miles (214 km) |
| Basin size | 630 square miles (1,600 km2) |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Joliet, Illinois |
| • average | 3,799 cu/ft. per sec. |
| Basin features | |
| Progression | Des Plaines River → Illinois → Mississippi → Gulf of Mexico |
Native Americans used the river as transportation route and portage. When French explorers and missionaries arrived in the 1600s, in what was then the Illinois Country of New France, they named the waterway La Rivière des Plaines (River of the Plane Tree) as they felt that trees on the river resembled the European plane tree. The local Native Americans showed these early European explorers how to traverse waterways of the Des Plaines watershed to travel from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and its valley.
Parts of the river are now part of the Illinois Waterway and the Chicago Area Waterway System.