Chicopee River
The Chicopee River is an 18.0-mile-long (29.0 km) tributary of the Connecticut River in Metropolitan Springfield, Massachusetts, known for fast-moving water and its extraordinarily large basin: the Connecticut River's largest tributary basin. The Chicopee River originates in a Palmer, Massachusetts village called Three Rivers, and then flows into the Connecticut River after passing through Ludlow, the Indian Orchard neighborhood of Springfield, and then curving sharply northwest before finding its confluence in downtown Chicopee, Massachusetts.
Largest Connecticut River tributary basin
Although the Chicopee River itself is only 18 miles long, its basin (drainage area) is 721 square miles (1,870 km2)—the largest in all of Massachusetts, and the largest tributary area (basin) to the Connecticut River. A basin tributary to the Connecticut River represents a geographical area with a stream or other body of water, surface or underground, that contributes water to the Connecticut River. With so many streams and rivers that deliver water to the Connecticut River, the scale of the Chicopee River's Basin is extraordinarily voluminous.