where do rivers start? Can we trace rivers to a spot where it starts to pour out like a tap?
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You have probably heard about something called the “water cycle”. Water evaporates into the air, forms into clouds, and rains back down onto the land as fresh water. That water obeys gravity and runs downhill. A “drainage basin” is an area where “downhill” all eventually comes together, so water falling into the drainage basin will eventually collect together into small streams, then large streams, and eventually rivers.
Where exactly the line is drawn between those things is somewhat arbitrary. Enough streams come together and become large enough and it becomes a river, and that is where the rivers “start”. A river might also end when it drains into another, larger or more important river. Eventually that water almost always makes its way to the ocean.
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