Where the Missouri and Mississippi meet, they each contribute roughly 50% of the water. The Mississippi was better known, so the Missouri became the "tributary" in name.
replyIf the opposite decision had been made, the river would be even longer in the books.
Interesting. I thought it was because the river emptied into the Gulf closest to the state of Mississippi. Like, it would have been slightly unintuitive to have named it the Missouri River all the way down past those Gulf Coast states. The history of river names and deciding which name continues after a confluence is quite interesting.
replyIt is an Algonquian name for the river, which the French transliterated when they explored the upper reaches.
replyThe whole thing is called the Mississippi river because it was the first to be discovered and named, and the French name stuck (I forgot what the Spanish called it but that name didn’t stick)
A quick trip to Wikipedia says that the Spanish name was Río del Espíritu Santo, River of the Holy Spirit, and the initial French name was fleuve de l'Immaculée Conception, River of the Immaculate Conception, and later the fleuve Colbert or the rivière Saint-Louis.
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