The Atchafalaya River is a 137-mile-long (220 km) distributary of the Mississippi River and Red River in south central Louisiana in the United States. It flows south, just west of the Mississippi River, and is the fifth largest river in North America, by discharge. The name Atchafalaya comes from Choctaw for 'long river', from hachcha, 'river', and falaya, 'long'.
Atchafalaya River delta on the Gulf of Mexico; view upriver to the northwest.
Atchafalaya Basin Sherburne Complex Wildlife Management Area
Formation of the Atchafalaya River and construction of the Old River Control Structure.
Two egrets on the limbs of a cypress in the Atchafalaya flood basin.
A distributary, or a distributary channel, is a stream that branches off and flows away from a main stream channel, a phenomenon known as river bifurcation. A distributary is effectively the opposite of a tributary, which is a stream that flows towards and into another stream or river. Distributaries are often found where a stream approaches a lake or an ocean; as such, they are a common feature of river deltas. They can also occur inland, on alluvial fans, or where a tributary stream bifurcates as it nears its confluence with a larger stream. In some cases, a minor distributary can divert so much water from the main channel that it can later become the main route.
Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, with the flow from right to left, showing several streams branching off from their main streams
Satellite image of part of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta
A seasonal distributary of the Kaveri River on the Kaveri delta, near Nannilam, India
Delta of Papua New Guinea's Fly River
