Connecticut River

The Connecticut River rises in a small pond barely 300 yards (270 m) from the Canadian border and flows about 406 miles (653 km) south to Long Island Sound, the longest river in New England. From Fourth Connecticut Lake in Pittsburg, New Hampshire, it forms the entire 255-mile (410 km) boundary between New Hampshire and Vermont, then crosses Massachusetts and Connecticut. Its basin of 11,260 square miles (29,200 km²) touches four states, and its flow of about 18,400 cubic feet per second (520 m³/s) supplies most of the fresh water entering Long Island Sound.

Its name comes from the Mohegan quinetucket, often rendered as beside the long tidal river. Shifting sandbars at its mouth kept a port city from rising there, making it the only major river in the Northeast without one, so towns grew upstream instead. Springfield and Hartford, the only state capital on the river, built their industries on its power and fertile valley floor. In 1997 the federal government created the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge to protect the whole watershed, and in 2012 the river became the first National Blueway.

• Long Island Sound
  The tidal estuary between Long Island and Connecticut flows into
• Hartford
  Capital of Connecticut, on the Connecticut River flows through
• Connecticut
  A compact New England state on Long Island Sound located in
• Massachusetts
  The Bay State, cultural anchor of New England located in
• New Hampshire
  The Granite State, home of the White Mountains located in
• Vermont
  The Green Mountain State, the only landlocked New England state located in