What is the contintental divide and where is it located?

Question

thanks in advance=]

Answer 1

THE Continental Divide, sometimes known as the Great Divide, is the line that divides the North American continent into areas where the water flows to the Pacific Ocean (or the desert) west/south of the divide, and into either the Arctic or Atlantic oceans north/east of the divide.

There are some lesser divides that demarcate water flow into such things as north to the Arctic/Hudson Bay and south to Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.

Here is a link with a map of North America showing those lines.

http://www.continental-divide.net/

Other continents would have similar divides.

Answer 2

The Continental Divide runs from Canada into Mexico with the Rocky Mountains.  It is the largest watershed in America.  All of the water west of the divide flows into the Pacific Ocean.  All the water east of the divide flows into the Atlantic Ocean.  Click on the link below for the location of the

Continental Divide ( its the red line).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:North...

Answer 3

continuous ridge of north-south–trending mountain summits in western North America.

It continues southward into Mexico and Central America, roughly paralleling the Sierra Madre Occidental and the Sierra Madre del Sur, with their associated ranges in Central America. In general usage the name continental divide is applied to the main water parting in any continent.

Answer 4

There are continental divides in North America, dividing the watersheds of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans. They meet in Gacier National Park in Montana (triple divide peak). A drop of rain on that divide could go west to the Pacific via the Columbia, north to the Arctic (Hudson's Bay) via the Saskatchewan, or south to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic via the Missouri-Mississippi.

A continental divide is the line separating the watersheds flowing into one ocean from ones flowing into some other ocean. There are a few places in the US, in Wyoming, Utah and Nevada, where the rivers do not flow into any ocean, they dry up first, and those areas are said to have interior drainage.

Otherwise, the Main continental divides in the US are 1) in Alaska between the Yukon River and the north Slope, dividing waters between Arctic Ocean and Pacific Ocean (Bristol Bay) and 2) along the Rocky Mts. from Montana south to New Mexico dividing waters flowing into the Pacific from those flowing into the Atlantic (actually the Gulf of Mexico).