The Rio Grande stretches for nearly 1900 miles from the Colorado Rockies all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, it forms the border between Mexico and Southwestern Texas.
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The Rio Grande begins high up in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, in the wilderness of the Rio Grande National Forest. Even more specifically, it starts as several small streams on the eastern side of Canby Mountain, 12,000 feet above sea level.
The Rio Grande is about 1,896 miles (3,051 kilometers) long. This makes it the 4th largest river in the United States—longer than the Colorado River (1,450 miles) but shorter than the Yukon River (1,936 miles). Approximately 1,255 miles of the Rio Grande’s 1,896-mile length forms the US-Mexico border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas.
From its humble beginnings as a tiny stream, the Rio Grande grows rapidly as it flows south through the mountains. After passing through the San Juan Mountains eastward, it enters the San Luis Valley.
Near the border of Colorado and New Mexico, the Rio Grande runs through the Rio Grande Gorge. This gorge was carved over millions of years by the river’s powerful current and is now designated as the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. In the 1970s, Apollo astronauts trained for their moon missions here on the rim of this gorge.