I’m essentially asking how a river “starts”, since I generally know that rivers mostly ends flowing into the ocean.
If you could, please use the Yangtze river as an example.
In: Physics
Rain, snowmelt, lakes, and springs.
With rain and melting snow, the water falls from the sky, flows downhill, and because of how hills work the water aggregates into tiny streams. Some also absorbs into the ground and is taken up by plants, but that’s not the focus right now. The streams join up into creeks which become increasibgly larger rivers as they join. Basically, a river starts wherever the cartographer decides he wants to stop drawing branching streams, and where those paths usually conjoin. The Yangtze, which you asked to use as an example, is formed this way from snowmelt in the Quinghai mountains in Tibet.
Lakes can start rivers too by basically overflowing their banks or if a bank gives way. Water takes the easiest path downhill from there. Lakes are (usually) fed by rivers though so this might not count.
Springs are where water from the groundwater breaches the surface. These usually form small ponds with no apparent source before overcoming their banks and making creeks/streams/rivers depending on just how much water is coming out.
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