Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: How long is the Sacramento River?
The Sacramento River is the principal river of Northern California in the United States, and is the largest river in California.[9] Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for 400 miles (640km) before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay. The river drains about 26,500 square miles (69,000km2) in 19 California counties, mostly within the fertile agricultural region bounded by the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada known as the Sacramento Valley, but also extending as far as the volcanic plateaus of Northeastern California. Historically, its watershed has reached as far north as south-central Oregon where the now, primarily, endorheic (closed) Goose Lake rarely experiences southerly outflow into the Pit River, the most northerly tributary of the Sacramento.
The Goose Lake example illustrates how USGS hydrologic units do not always conform strictly to drainage basins. Despite being part of the Upper Sacramento River basin (or accounting unit), HUC 180200, and the Sacramento River subregion, HUC 1802, the Goose Lake subbasin (or cataloging unit), HUC 18020001, was defined as a closed basin during the watershed and subwatershed delineation process. Therefore, the area of the Sacramento River subregion and the Upper Sacramento River basin, as published by the USGS ( and respectively), are too large by at least the size of the Goose Lake subbasin/cataloging unit, .
In the Sacramento River, Steamboat Slough was an alternate branch of the river, a preferred shortcut route for steamboats passing between Sacramento and San Francisco. Georgiana Slough was a steamboat route through the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, from the Sacramento River to the San Joaquin River and Stockton.
Downtown Sacramento is the central business district of the City of Sacramento. Downtown is generally defined as the area south of the American River, east of the Sacramento River, north of Broadway, and west of 16th Street. The central business district is generally defined as north of R Street, south of H Street, east of the Sacramento River, and west of 16th Street. Downtown Sacramento is currently undergoing a major revitalization project.
In the 19th century, gold was discovered on a tributary of the Sacramento River, starting the California Gold Rush and an enormous population influx to the state. Overland trails such as the California Trail and Siskiyou Trail guided hundreds of thousands of people to the gold fields. By the late part of the century mining had ceased to be a major part of the economy, and many immigrants turned to farming and ranching. Many populous communities were established along the Sacramento River, including the state capital of Sacramento. Intensive agriculture and mining contributed to pollution in the Sacramento River, and significant changes to the river's hydrology and environment.
California also has several important seaports. The giant seaport complex formed by the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach in Southern California is the largest in the country and responsible for handling about a fourth of all container cargo traffic in the United States. The Port of Oakland handles most of the ocean containers passing through Northern California. The Port of Redwood City, the Port of Richmond, and the Port of San Diego are also significant ports for freight shipments. The Port of Sacramento and the Port of Stockton are two major inland deepwater ports located in the Central Valley, and thus only accessible via the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. Instead of dredging the Sacramento River, the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel was built in 1963 to accommodate large ships traveling from the delta to Sacramento.
Cottonwood Creek is a major stream and tributary of the Sacramento River in Northern California. About long measured to its uppermost tributaries, the creek drains a large rural area bounded by the crest of the Coast Ranges, traversing the northwestern Sacramento Valley before emptying into the Sacramento River near the town of Cottonwood. For its entire length, it defines the boundary of Shasta and Tehama counties. Because Cottonwood Creek is the largest undammed tributary of the Sacramento River, it is known for its Chinook salmon and steelhead runs.
The Sacramento pikeminnow ("Ptychocheilus grandis") (also known as Sacramento squawfish) is a large cyprinid fish of California. It is native to the Los Angeles River, Sacramento-San Joaquin, Pajaro-Salinas, Russian River, Clear Lake and upper Pit River river basins.
Salt Creek is a stream in the U.S. state of California. The long stream is a tributary to the Sacramento River.
The area that would become the city of Sacramento was initially observed by many European and American mapmakers as home to Great Plains-based rivers that stretched across the Rocky Mountains and emptied into the Pacific Ocean. Speculation at the time placed the fabled St. Bonaventura River where the American-Sacramento River complex was; mountain man Jedediah Smith mistook the American and Sacramento Rivers for the St. Bonaventura in his 1827 venture into the region, and named the Sacramento Valley the "Valley of the Bonadventure" before trekking southwards along the Stanislaus River.
Cosumnes River College is a side platformed Sacramento RT light rail station in Sacramento, California, United States. The station was opened on August 24, 2015, and is operated by the Sacramento Regional Transit District. As the southern terminus of the Blue Line, it has service to Downtown Sacramento, North Sacramento, California State University, Sacramento, Rancho Cordova, Gold River and Folsom. The station is located on the east side of Cosumnes River College, near the intersection of Bruceville Road and Cosumnes River Boulevard in South Sacramento. It is attached to a 2,016-stall paid parking garage and is served by several bus routes at a dedicated bus station to the west of the platforms.
About 20 miles (32km) further downstream, the Sacramento River reaches the Tisdale Weir. During floods, water overtops the weir and flows east into the Sutter Bypass, the first of two major bypass channels that temporarily store and move floodwaters downstream to reduce pressure on the main channel of the Sacramento. The Sacramento River and the Sutter Bypass flow parallel for over 40 miles (64km), rejoining on the border of Sutter County and Yolo County near Knights Landing. The Feather River, the largest tributary of the Sacramento, joins from the east at Verona directly below the Sutter Bypass. A second flood control structure, the Fremont Weir, diverts flood waters from both the Sacramento and Feather Rivers into the Yolo Bypass, which parallels the Sacramento River down the west side of the valley. Cache Creek and Putah Creek, two major tributaries which formerly joined the Sacramento River from the west, are now intercepted by the Yolo Bypass via man-made channels.[10] The main channel of the Sacramento flows south, forming the Yolo–Sacramento County line.
The American River (Río de los Americanos during the period before 1847 ruled by Mexico) is a 120-mile-long river in California that runs from the Sierra Nevada mountain range to its confluence with the Sacramento River in the Sacramento Valley. Via the Sacramento River, it is part of the San Francisco Bay watershed. This river is fed by the melting snowpack of the Sierra Nevada and its many headwaters and tributaries, including the North Fork American River, the Middle Fork American River, and the South Fork American River.
As the river continues south it approaches the Sacramento metro area, the largest population center in the watershed. Sacramento International Airport is located on the east bank of the river near Fremont. Near downtown Sacramento it receives the American River from the east, then passes under the historic Tower Bridge and Interstate 80. The California State Capitol sits less than half a mile (0.8km) east of the river where the Tower Bridge crosses it. Shortly downstream, the Port of Sacramento is located on the west side of the Sacramento, connected to the river by a lock. The Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel provides access to the port from the Pacific, bypassing about 42 miles (68km) of the winding lower Sacramento. The channel runs parallel to the Sacramento several miles to the west, and also forms the eastern boundary of the Yolo Bypass.[10] The manually operated Sacramento Weir, located across from downtown Sacramento on the west side of the river, serves to relieve floodwater pressure from the American River by allowing it to drain west into the Yolo Bypass instead of continuing down the Sacramento River.
It was not long after Sacramento surpassed a population of 10,000, then the Great Flood of 1862 swept away much of it (and almost everything else along the Sacramento River) and put the rest under water. The flood waters were exacerbated by the sediments washed down by the millions of tons by hydraulic mining, which filled the beds of the Sacramento, Feather and American rivers up to 7 feet (2.1m) in Sacramento and also covered thousands of acres of Central Valley lands.[68][69] A flood in 1875 covered the city of Marysville and when it subsided the town's streets were filled with debris and rocks washed down from the "hydraulicking" going on upstream.[68][70]
The Feather River is the principal tributary of the Sacramento River, in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. The river's main stem is about long. Its length to its most distant headwater tributary is just over . The main stem Feather River begins in Lake Oroville, where its four long tributary forks join together—the South Fork, Middle Fork, North Fork, and West Branch Feather Rivers. These and other tributaries drain part of the northern Sierra Nevada, and the extreme southern Cascades, as well as a small portion of the Sacramento Valley. The total drainage basin is about , with approximately above Lake Oroville.
The longest tributary of the Sacramento River, it contributes as much as eighty percent of their combined water volume into the Shasta Lake reservoir; the junction of their Shasta Lake arms is northeast of Shasta Dam. The main stem of the Pit River is long, and some water in the system flows to the Sacramento River measuring from the Pit River's longest source.
The Pit River drains a sparsely populated volcanic highlands area, passing through the south end of the Cascade Range in a deep canyon northeast of Redding. The river is so named because of the pits the Achumawi dug to trap game that came to water at the river.
Marine animals such as whales and sea lions are occasionally found far inland after navigating the river for food or refuge and then losing track of how to get back to the Pacific Ocean. In October 1985 a humpback whale affectionately named "Humphrey the humpbacked whale" by television media traveled 69 miles (111km) up the Sacramento River before being rescued. Rescuers downstream broadcast sounds of humpback whales feeding to draw the whale back to the ocean.[107]
The creek is long, flowing in southern Siskiyou County and northern Shasta County. Clear Creek is the first major Sacramento River tributary downstream of the Shasta Dam.
The first steamboats operating above Sacramento on the Sacramento River were the 52-ton "Linda" and the 36.5-ton "Lawrence". Also steamboats operated on the American River, tributary to the Sacramento River, up to Norristown, smaller boats as far as Coloma. On the Feather River they steamed up to Yuba City, and on the Yuba River to Marysville, both also tributaries of the Sacramento. Others steamed farther up the Sacramento river as far north as Red Bluff and the 42-ton steamboat "Jack Hays" reached Redding the head of navigation on the Sacramento, during the spring flood on May 8, 1850. It then began regular service up river: 
After crossing into Sacramento County, Dry Creek flows south-southwest between Gibson Ranch County Park (to the west) and the city of Antelope (to the east). Then it flows southwest through the community of Rio Linda, mostly split into two parallel branches that enclose a long narrow strip of land called Cherry Island. Finally, Dry Creek enters the City of Sacramento northwest of Robla, flows west-southwest (forming a small delta) and merges with Steelhead Creek (Natomas East Main Drainage Canal). Steelhead Creek flows south into Discovery Park in American River Parkway and then west (parallel with American River) into Sacramento River.
Dry Creek (formerly called Linda Creek) is a long stream in Placer County, California, tributary to the Sacramento River. Its watershed lies within the Sacramento Valley. Because suburban development borders much of its length, the stream is noted for its capacity to cause local flooding and as a recreational attraction. 
Stony Creek is a -long seasonal river in Northern California. It is a tributary of the Sacramento River, draining a watershed of more than on the west side of the Sacramento Valley in Glenn, Colusa, Lake and Tehama Counties. 
The Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel (also known as the "Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel" or "SRDWSC") is a canal from the Port of Sacramento to the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay. It was completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1963. The channel is about deep, wide, and long.
The McCloud River is a long river that flows east of and parallel to the upper Sacramento River, in Siskiyou County and Shasta County in northern California in the United States. It drains a scenic mountainous area of the Cascade Range, including part of Mount Shasta. It is a tributary of the Pit River, which in turn flows into the Sacramento River. The three rivers join in Shasta Lake, formed by Shasta Dam north of Redding.