Life in the southwestern U.S. as we know it exists thanks to the water of the Colorado River, which flows for approximately 1,450 miles from the Rockies to the Gulf of California. The river gets its water from the Colorado River drainage basin, which spreads some 246,000 square miles. A drainage basin is an area where all precipitation flows to the same river, or set of streams. The Colorado River basin is made up of all of Arizona, parts of California, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming, and two Mexican states—Baja California and Sonora—although the final two states contribute little runoff to the river.

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