mouth_of_the_watercourse yaque del norte river
A drainage basin or catchment basin is an extent or an area of land where all surface water from rain , melting snow , or ice converges to a single point at a lower elevation , usually the exit of the basin , where the waters join another body of water , such as a river , lake , reservoir , estuary , wetland , ___MASK90___ , or ocean . Thus if a tributary stream joins a brook that in turn joins a small river which is a tributary of a larger river , there is a series of successively larger ( and lower elevation ) drainage basins . For instance , the Missouri and Ohio rivers are within their own drainage basins and also within the drainage basin of the ___MASK96___ . The Greater Antilles is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean ___MASK90___ : Cuba , Hispaniola ( containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic ), Puerto Rico , Jamaica , and the Cayman Islands . The Greater Antilles constitute over 90 % of the land mass of the entire West Indies , as well as over 90 % of its population , with the balance made of the archipelago of the Lesser Antilles , which is a chain of islands to the east ( running north - south and encompassing the eastern edge of the Caribbean ___MASK90___ where it meets the ___MASK5___ ) and south ( running east - west off the northern coast of South America ). The ___MASK96___ is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent . Flowing entirely in the United States ( although its drainage basin reaches into Canada ), it rises in northern Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the ___MASK96___ Delta at the ___MASK46___ . With its many tributaries , the Mississippi ' s watershed drains all or parts of 31 U . S . states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains . The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge . The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Missouri , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Mississippi , and Louisiana . An ocean ( the ___MASK90___ of classical antiquity ) is a body of saline water that composes much of a planet ' s hydrosphere . On Earth , an ocean is one of the major conventional divisions of the World Ocean , which covers almost 71 % of its surface . These are , in descending order by area , the Pacific , Atlantic , Indian , Southern ( Antarctic ), and Arctic Oceans . The word " ___MASK90___ " is often used interchangeably with " ocean " in American English but , strictly speaking , a ___MASK90___ is a body of saline water ( generally a division of the world ocean ) partly or fully enclosed by land . " See also West Indies , Caribbean " The Antilles (" Antilles " in French ; " Antillas " in Spanish ; " Antillen " in Dutch and " Antilhas " in Portuguese ) are an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean ___MASK90___ to the south and west , the ___MASK46___ to the northwest , and the ___MASK5___ to the north and east . Cuba , officially the Republic of Cuba , is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos . Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean ___MASK90___ , the ___MASK46___ , and the ___MASK5___ meet . It is south of both the U . S . state of Florida and the Bahamas , west of Haiti , and north of Jamaica . Havana is the largest city and capital ; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey . Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean , with an area of , and the second - most populous after Hispaniola , with over 11 million inhabitants . A river is a natural flowing watercourse , usually freshwater , flowing towards an ocean , ___MASK90___ , lake or another river . In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water . Small rivers can be referred to using names such as stream , creek , brook , rivulet , and rill . There are no official definitions for the generic term river as applied to geographic features , although in some countries or communities a stream is defined by its size . Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location ; examples are " run " in some parts of the United States , " burn " in Scotland and northeast England , and " beck " in northern England . Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek , but not always : the language is vague . The Yaque Del Norte River is the longest river in the Dominican Republic . The river rises in the centre of the country to the south of Santiago city in Santiago province . The river runs roughly due north , through Santiago , before turning west - north - west through the Cibao Valley . The river ' s source originates in the Cordillera Central as small rivulets , before merging into one as they flow north down toward the Cibao Valley . It enters the Manzanillo Bay in the Atlantic just west of Monte Cristi . The river is 298 km long , is the drainage basin for the north - west of the country and is economically important as a source of irrigation for rice - farming and other agriculture . The Yaque Del Norte is mostly shallow , so navigation is limited to small boats . During the wet season , however , the river swells up considerably , causing floods in some places . In 1972 , its waters have been dammed to harness electricity at the Tavera Dam . A ___MASK90___ is a large body of salt water that is surrounded in whole or in part by land . More broadly , " the ___MASK90___ " is the interconnected system of Earth ' s salty , oceanic waters  considered as one global ocean or as several principal oceanic divisions . The ___MASK90___ moderates Earth ' s climate and has important roles in the water cycle , carbon cycle , and nitrogen cycle . Although the ___MASK90___ has been traveled and explored since prehistory , the modern scientific study of the ___MASK90___  oceanography  dates broadly to the British " Challenger " expedition of the 1870s . The ___MASK90___ is conventionally divided into up to five large oceanic sections  including the International Hydrographic Organization ' s four named oceans ( the Atlantic , Pacific , Indian , and Arctic ) and the ___MASK44___ ; smaller , second - order sections , such as the Mediterranean , are known as " seas ". The Caribbean ( or ) is a region that consists of the Caribbean ___MASK90___ , its islands ( some surrounded by the Caribbean ___MASK90___ and some bordering both the Caribbean ___MASK90___ and the North ___MASK5___ ) and the surrounding coasts . The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland , east of Central America , and north of South America . Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a sovereign state located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean ___MASK90___ . It occupies the western three - eighths of the island , which it shares with the Dominican Republic . Haiti is in size and has an estimated 10 . 6 million people , making it the most populous country in the Caribbean Community ( CARICOM ) and the second - most populous country in the Caribbean as a whole . The Dominican Republic is a sovereign state occupying the eastern two - thirds of the island of Hispaniola , in the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region . The western one - third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti , making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands , along with Saint Martin , that are shared by two countries . The Dominican Republic is the second - largest Caribbean nation by area ( after Cuba ) at , and 3rd by population with 10 . 08 million people , of which approximately three million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo , the capital city . An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it , and with a free connection to the open ___MASK90___ .