The Mississippi River is part of the largest river system in North America. The Mississippi River begins in northern Minnesota and runs over 2,500 mils to eventually empty into the Gulf of Mexico. It passes through or borders ten states on its path to the Mississippi Delta of Louisiana. The Mississippi River is the chief river in the Mississippi system. It is fed by many tributaries, including the Missouri River and the Ohio River. the Mississippi river system,with all of its tributaries,is the fourth longest in the world,surpassed only by the Nile,the Amazon and the Yangtze. The Mississippi discharges an average of 200,000 to 700,000 cubic feet of water a second into the Gulf of Mexico. This out flow makes it the fifth largest river by volume in the word.