YAZOO RIVER

river formed by the confluence of the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha rivers north of Greenwood, Mississippi, U.S. It meanders 189 miles (304 km) generally south and southwest, much of the way paralleling the Mississippi River, which it joins at Vicksburg. The Yazoo flows with a fall of only 7 1/2 inches (19 cm) per mile. Prior to the completion of a system of levees in 1886, the Yazoo Basin was subject to headwater flooding by the larger streams; after that it became a major cotton-growing region. The basin, or floodplain, between the Mississippi on the west and the Yazoo on the east is now protected from the Mississippi's overflow by 270 miles (435 km) of levees extending from south of Memphis to the mouth of the Yazoo at Vicksburg. The basin is variously called the Delta, the Yazoo Delta, and the Yazoo Basin. Chief cities along the Yazoo River are Greenwood and Yazoo City. The name Yazoo (that of an Indian tribe) is also applied to a tributary that flows parallel to the main stream for some distance before their confluence farther downstream.