The Gila River is a 649-mile-long (1,044 km) tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of nearly 60,000 square miles (160,000 km2) that lies mostly within the U.S., but also extends into northern Sonora, Mexico.
The river in the Gila Box Canyon in eastern Arizona
The McPhaul Suspension Bridge on a former section of US Route 95 spans the Gila between the Gila and Laguna ranges in Yuma County. The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Gila River near Coolidge Dam in Arizona
This patch of desert south of Buckeye, Arizona, drains east and west from a minor drainage divide. When they flow, both sides flow to the Gila River.
The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river, the 5th longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
The Colorado River at Horseshoe Bend, Arizona, a few miles below Glen Canyon Dam
Headwaters of the Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Colorado River in the Grand Canyon seen from Pima Point, near Hermit's Rest
Colorado River as it exits the United States into Mexico beneath the San Luis Colorado-Colonia Miguel Aléman Bridge (September 2009)