When it comes to hearing the word “river”, the pictures that may come into one’s mind are long waterways that flow from various landforms all the way to an ocean or lake. This body of water causes both the flora and the fauna to thrive. But while we think of rivers as big and lengthy bodies of water, there are also rivers that are so short that you can walk their entire length in just a few minutes.
You might argue that if a river is so small, it shouldn’t be called a river at all but a stream or a creek, which begs the question: what defines a river?
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The distinction between rivers, streams, and creeks, is… based entirely on size and is possibly subjective. Creeks are the smallest of the three, streams lie in the middle, and rivers are the largest. The definition is so vague that there are a lot of contenders to the title of “the shortest river in the world.”
Check out some of these short rivers over at Amusing Planet.
(Image Credit: Bracodbk/ WIkimedia Commons)