Navigable Rivers in North AmericaNorth America has an impressive array of navigable waterways. Most of them are rivers that manage to have a breadth and depth (due to locks and dams) that can accommodate heavy barge traffic. Other rivers can accommodate light traffic, while canals constructed in the golden era of such transportation are no longer used for industrial purposes.

In the 19th century, when the United States was a young nation and was developing its identity and commercial aspects, it needed a transportation system to link its varying markets of agriculture, industry, mining, and fur trade. Therefore, the nation began a process of developing canals that were created through back breaking labor. The first canal in the young nation was the James River and Kanawha Canal created in the state of Virginia. Planned by George Washington and promoted by the likes of John Marshall, the canal would connect the James River on Virginia's coast to the Great Kanawha River that connects to the Ohio River in the nation's interior in what is now West Virginia. Only the James River portion of the canal was ever built as the Appalachian Mountains proved too great an obstacle to build the canal further west.

The most famous and successful canal plan was the Erie Canal, constructed in the state of New York from Lake Erie in Buffalo to the Atlantic Coast in New York City. Using a series of drops from the higher elevations to the coast, the Erie Canal was able to connect the Midwest to the East Coast, thereby creating the fortunes of not only the two cities it connected, but those in between, such as Rochester and Syracuse, as well as the Great Lakes cities of Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit and Chicago. The Erie Canal became a defining turning point in American industry and built a foundry of commercialism in the North that would benefit the region during the American Civil War.

Other canals were built with varying levels of success, but the more ambitious plans were often abandoned because the Appalachian Mountains continued to provide too much of a challenge.

Perhaps the most elaborate canal plan in the United States was first envisioned by George Washington when he created the James River and Kanawha Canal. Washington contemplated a canalized waterway from the Virginia coast, running west to the great rivers of the central part of the continent. The plan would not come to the drawing board until a century later in the 1870s under the name The Great American Central Water Line.

The idea for this river that would run westward was to complete the James River and Kanawha Canal by using the Greenbrier River in West Virginia as a conduit between the James and Great Kanawha Rivers. If successful, river traffic could leave the Virginia coast and follow the James, Greenbrier and Great Kanawha Rivers to the Ohio River, which in turn connects with the Mississippi River in Illinois, which further connects with the Arkansas River in Arkansas, that runs all the way into Colorado. Hence the Great American Central Water Line would run for over 2,000 miles. While the mountains were, at this point in engineering, surmountable, the cost of the project proved to be inefficient. Railroads had already covered the continent and could more affordably compete with canals, rendering the Water Line obsolete before its construction.

One of the most impressive navigable waterways in the world is the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is a canalized channel system created on the St. Lawrence River, which serves as a part of the border between Canada and the United States. This great channel allows ocean going vessels to progress inland and reach the Great Lakes, hence allowing huge watercraft loaded with international cargo to reach all the way to Lake Superior, ending at the port in Duluth, Minnesota.

The primary navigable rivers were created through the canalization process that began in the 19th Century by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Before that, bodies of water like the Ohio River had rushing high waters in the spring after snow melt off in the mountains, but were largely dry or only a few inches deep by autumn. People could literally walk across the Ohio River and not even get wet.

Today locks and dams keep these rivers around 15 to 18 feet in depth. Most of the American navigable rivers are in the East, while only three are in the West.

The primary navigable rivers in the United States are:

Mississippi River--from Lake Itasca, Minnesota to New Orleans, Louisiana
Ohio River--from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Cairo, Illinois
Missouri River--from Beaverhead County, Montana to St. Louis, Missouri
Arkansas River--from Leadville, Colorado to Napoleon, Arkansas
Tennessee River--from Knoxville, Tennessee to Paducah, Kentucky
Cumberland River--from Letcher County, Kentucky to Smithland, Kentucky
Kentucky River--from Beattyville, Kentucky to Carrolton, Kentucky
Illinois River--Grundy County, Illinois to Grafton, Illinois
Red River--Harmon County, Oklahoma to West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
Tombigbee/Mobile Rivers-- Itawamba County, Mississippi to Mobile, Alabama
Delaware River--Roxbury, New York to Delaware Bay, Delaware
Susquehanna River--Cooperstown, New York to Havre de Grace, Maryland
Hudson River--Mount Marcy, New York to New York, New York
Great Kanawha River--Gauley Bridge, West Virginia to Point Pleasant, West Virginia
Little Kanawha River--Upshur County, West Virginia to Parkersburg, West Virginia
Big Sandy River--Louisa, Kentucky to Kenova, West Virginia
Monongahela River--Fairmont, West Virginia to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Allegheny River--Coudersport, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
San Joaquin River--Balloon Dome, California to Suisun Bay, California
Sacramento River--Mount Shasta, California to Suisan Bay, California
Columbia River--Columbia Lake, British Columbia to Clatsop County, Oregon

Though these bodies of water are considered navigable, it is important to note that they are not all navigable for their entire length.

Of the United States' ten busiest ports, all are ocean ports except for the Port of Huntington/Tri-State, which ranks consistently in the list, based upon the varying tonages of a particular year. In 2005, the river port was 4th busiest in the U.S. Huntington is a small city located on the Ohio River in West Virginia, opposite of Ohio and just a few miles upstream from Kentucky, hence the Tri-State name of the port. The large amount of tonnage that goes through the port, puts this small city in the company of Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Baltimore.

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