{"id":9254,"date":"2023-10-25T08:15:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T07:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aboutriver.com\/?p=9254"},"modified":"2023-10-25T08:15:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T07:15:14","slug":"how-many-nautical-miles-is-the-mississippi-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aboutriver.com\/how-many-nautical-miles-is-the-mississippi-river\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many Nautical Miles Is The Mississippi River"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Mississippi River is the second-longest river in the United States and one of the busiest in terms of commercial shipping activity. The river, which starts in central Minnesota and travels 2,340 miles before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico, has an impressive number of navigable miles of waterways. But how many nautical miles is the Mississippi River? <\/p>\n

In order to answer this question, you need to first understand how distances are measured on the river. Nautical miles, also known as sea miles, are used to measure distances on navigable waterways. A nautical mile is equivalent to approximately 1.15 statute miles. This means that the same distance is 1.15 times longer when measured in nautical miles as compared to statute miles. <\/p>\n

By most estimations, the Mississippi River has roughly 1,300 miles of navigable waters. When converted to nautical miles, that’s 1,491. To provide a clearer visual of this number, the Mississippi River is four times the length of the San Diego to San Francisco coast-to-coast distance and twice the length of the San Francisco to Seattle coast-to-coast distance. <\/p>\n

The Mississippi River is an important waterway for commerce, agriculture and transportation. In fact, more than 200 thousand commercial vessel and barge movements were tracked along the river in 2017. That’s why it’s so important that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in charge of maintaining the navigation channels along the river. <\/p>\n