What makes a river a river?!

[ChrisJB]

I'd say a river becomes a river when it gets named one. I doubt there are hard and fast rules. Just look at the broad span of names for flowing water on maps: river, brook, burn, beck, bourne, rill, syke, sike, stream, gill, ghyll, etc. Obviously the Amazon would never be described as a syke, so size must play a part to some extent, but as yet I've never come across a written rule.
As Coasty says, geography can be the key and it is beautifully illustrated in the Pennines. In the southern end we have brooks, get into the Dales and we have becks, and even well before Scotland is reached, in the North Pennines, the first burns start to appear.
Round here, upland streams are brooks. Some people wrongly call our local brooks, cloughs, but here, our cloughs are the small, usually upland valleys that brooks flow through.

Regards, Chris

[MemrysOfAGlacier]

It is determined what body of flowing water is classified as by the amount of water flows through its bed annually. So just because your just a creek now doesn't mean you won't be a raging river one day probably one day very soon

[solus]

Originally Posted by ChrisJB

I'd say a river becomes a river when it gets named one.

Ah. Let me introduce a little spanner into the works. The source of the River Thames is at Thames Head near Kemble in Gloucestershire where it rises from a spring or springs. It is called the River Thames from the very start - wherever that may actually be as except in very, very wet seasons there is no water to be seen above ground for a further 2 or 3 fields and a road crossing from the official source site.....! But it is the River Thames all the way!

[Fuzzy-felt bloke]

The question is about stream order, which are rills, gullies, tributary river channels and then trunk rivers, all are based on discharge. Just think of a catchment area streams feed into rivers, although as people have already stated there is no clear-cut definition between a river or a stream purely by name.

Fuzzy-Felt Bloke

[wizzo]

I don't think this is 'hyjacking' the thread but......on a simalar subject, I've always wondered about these questions. When does a boat become a ship, a hill become a mountain or when does a pond become a lake Wizzo

[Gill Catton]

What makes a river a river?

The Environment Agency....

I've had a stagnant wet ditch turn out to be a main river before now.....

[ChrisJB]

Originally Posted by solus

Ah. Let me introduce a little spanner into the works. The source of the River Thames is at Thames Head near Kemble in Gloucestershire where it rises from a spring or springs. It is called the River Thames from the very start - wherever that may actually be as except in very, very wet seasons there is no water to be seen above ground for a further 2 or 3 fields and a road crossing from the official source site.....! But it is the River Thames all the way!

If it's named on maps, that'll do for me!

Regards, Chris