Rabat, Morocco

River ferries can be just as important as sea ferries. These small boats await the opportunity to ferry people across the Bou Regreg River from Rabat to Salé. Of course, service may have been upgraded over the past three decades. [1989]

Spokane, Washington, USA

What physical feature defines your city? In Spokane, it is Spokane Falls. It was early recognized as a source of water power, a sawmill was established, and the city grew up as a service center for the ranches and mines in the surrounding region. The falls maintained their centrality in the urban settlement fabric: the city's downtown is adjacent. [2019]

Spokane, Washington, USA

The Great Northern Clock Tower is an early 20th century landmark, an authentic reminder of the role played by rail connections in turning a frontier outpost into the cardinal place of eastern Washington. Rising high above the city, this was the clock that established the rhythms of each day. It displayed the time of record despite what other clocks said. [2019]

Jones, Kansas, USA

Fall comes to the Great Plains. Today, in fact. It's the autumnal equinox. All over the Middle Latitudes trees and shrubs will be signing off for the season with one final show of colorful glory. Along the Cimarron River the palette of place may be more muted than in the East, but it is still cast in all of nature's glory. [2018]

Dobbins, California, USA

The Bullards Bar Dam was built in the early 1960s to provide flood control on the Yuba River system. Is it located in Northern California or Southern California? If you don't know, just look at the landscape. [2006]

Jeffersonville, Indiana, USA

The morning roundup seems to be going as usual. In this case, they are rounding up the e-scooters that litter the city from the day before. After an inspection, the scooters will be repositioned in situ or taken off to some other site. They are surely geo-tagged: for now just the scooters, in the future the workers. [2022]

Jeffersonville, Indiana, USA

It looks like he is droning on and on about his new toy, but his friends seem to be listening patiently. What is it that captures their attention? A drone, of course. And the riverfront in Jeff seems perfectly situated to offer them some birds eye views of the Ohio. [2022]

Jeffersonville, Indiana, USA

If steam could power trains, it could power boats as well. It could turn the paddlewheels and keep the Ohio River humming with activity, particularly as it flowed by Louisville and its cross-river neighbor, Jeffersonville. "Jeff" for short, at least recently. In the past, we used to call it "J-ville." [2022]

DeSoto, Wisconsin, USA

The Mississippi River in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1997, p. 748: "Navigable river, cen. U.S.; rises in Lake Itasca, NW Minnesota, flows . . . into the Gulf of Mexico through several mouths known locally as The Passes – Main Pass, North Pass, South Pass, Southwest Pass; 2340 mi." High water! [2019] 

Bismarck, North Dakota, USA

The Missouri River in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1997, p. 750: "River; cen. and NW cen. U.S.; formed by confluence of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin rivers in Gallatin co., S Montana; . . . joins the Mississippi River ab. 10 mi. N of St. Louis; 2466 mi." [2021]

Leavenworth, Indiana, USA

The Ohio River in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1997, p 861: "Navigable river in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Pittsburgh . . .; empties into Mississippi River at Cairo, S extremity of Illinois; 975 mi." This is Horseshoe Bend. [2022]

Epes, Alabama, USA

The Tombigbee River in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1997, p. 1190: "River; Alabama, formed by junction of E fork and W fork near Amory, Mississippi, crosses Alabama border west of Carrolton, flows S into the Alabama River to form the Mobile and Tensaw Rivers flowing into Mobile Bay at Mobile: 409 mi." See the White Cliffs of Epes? [2005]

Brunswick, Maryland, USA

The Potomac River in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1997, p. 951: "River; E U.S. in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland; formed by the confluence of N branch and S branch; flows E and SE to form West Virginia-Maryland and Virginia-Maryland boundaries and empties into Chesapeake Bay; 287 mi." [2021]

Columbia, Pennsylvania, USA

The Susquehanna River in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1997, p. 1141: "River; cen. New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, rises in Otsego Lake, Otsego co., cen. New York, flows S across Pennsylvania border and across E Pennsylvania and NE corner of Maryland, to empty into N Chesapeake Bay; 444 mi." [2013]

THE BACKSTORY ~ Posted on the 12^th Anniversary of Geographically Yours, 4 August 2022: Posts in late June 2022 were spent honoring some of America’s great rivers, including two of my besties: the Susquehanna (on whose banks I was born) and the Potomac (close to whose banks I lived for a while). For the photo captions, I decided to use entries from Merriam-Webster’s Geographical Dictionary, which, for decades, was a standard reference work for geographers and librarians.

It is now in its third edition, and it may be the last. Esoteric knowledge that used to be bound in books is now universally accessible digitally. The dust jacket of the revised 3rd edition is shown here. If you look at it closely, you will see a yellow starburst with a quote: “This is a masterful revision.” That quote was lifted from a review I wrote for “The Geographical” (its nickname) back when it was first published. In the 1990s, I loved walking into almost any bookstore and finding my name on the cover of a book I didn’t even write. At the same time, it made me feel a little bad. That’s because not even the editor, the one who did all the work, had his name on the book cover (though it is inside, along with a nice preface). He and I were friends in graduate school at the University of Rhode Island and we continue to be friends to this day. He got his M.A. and became an editor with one of the most revered publishing houses in lexicography. His expertise is geography, but he tended to other duties, too. As he attended professional meetings, he listened to paper presentations took notes on new words that were being used or on old words used in new contexts: for the files at headquarters in Springfield, Mass. Low-key but exciting. Together, we even gave a paper at one of those meetings. It was on generic place names (geographers call them toponyms). I posted our maps on Geographically Yours. We spent a lot of time plotting all those towns with endings like -burg and -boro. We did it by hand. Now, with Geographic Information Systems, a computer can do it instantly. DJ.Z.

Milton, Kentucky, USA

Early in the history of Virginia (yes, Kentucky was part of Virginia), a town was necessary in this vicinity. That's because a connection, a ferry, was needed between the two sides of the mighty Ohio, and there was a convenient set of river terraces that gave way to towns. It wasn't long, however, until natural history, caught up with settlement history. [2022]

Madison, Indiana, USA

Upstream from Madison on the Ohio River is Cincinnati. Downstream is Louisville. All three cities were founded within a decade or two of 1800. Why did Cincinnati and Louisville grow into national metropolises while Madison shrank from history (even though it was one of the 100 largest cities in the country by 1850)? Think: transportation geography. [2022]

Contoocook, New Hampshire, USA

You know you love summer with its cooling background colors (greens and blues) and its floral punctuation marks in purple, not to mention red, orange, and yellow. What's the river? The Contoocook, of course. [2018]

Lansing, West Virginia, USA

You know how Americans are! We just couldn't sit by and let Africa, with its Nile, claim to have the oldest river in the world. In North America, we excel in superlatives, so the title had to be ours. Meet: the New River, which we (some?) claim to be the oldest in the world. So, the New River is an old river, but the new bridge isn't anything like the old bridge. [2021]

Providence, Rhode Island, USA

The river and the city share a name: Providence. Roger Williams planted the name on the landscape when he detached himself from Massachusetts and set up a colony of his own. What led him to this very spot? God's Divine Providence. [2021]

Louisville, Kentucky, USA

The northeastern seaboard dominated America's urban geography in the early 1800s. But by mid-century, a network of river cities in the trans-Appalachian west began to challenge the existing order. By 1840, Louisville was solidly among the "top 20" urban places in the U.S., and it held that status for at least four decades. Why? Location on the Ohio River. [2022]