Gila River

The Gila River is a 649-mile-long tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona, with a watershed of nearly 60,000 square miles that extends into northern Sonora, Mexico. Indigenous peoples have lived along the river for at least 2,000 years, establishing complex agricultural societies before European exploration began in the 16th century. Development in the 20th century led to the construction of large diversion and flood control structures, resulting in a significant decline in the river's natural discharge from around 1,900 cubic feet per second to 247 cubic feet per second. The engineering projects transformed much of the river valley into irrigated land, supplying water to over five million people in the Phoenix and Tucson metropolitan areas. The river has its source in western New Mexico and flows southwest through the Gila National Forest and the Gila Wilderness before emptying into the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona, where it is joined by several major tributaries, including the Salt River.learn more on wikipedia