Mitchell River (Queensland)

The Mitchell River is a river in Far North Queensland, Australia. The river rises on the Atherton Tableland about 50 kilometres (31 mi) northwest of Cairns and flows about 750 kilometres (470 mi) northwest across Cape York Peninsula from Mareeba to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The river's watershed covers an area of 71,757 km2 (27,706 sq mi). The Mitchell has the state's largest discharge, at 11.3 million megalitres (2.5×10^12 imp gal; 3.0×10^12 US gal) annually, but is intermittent and may be dry for part of the year. Lake Mitchell is the main water storage facility on the river.

It was named by Ludwig Leichhardt on 16 June 1845 after Sir Thomas Mitchell while he was on his overland expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. It may have been previously named the Vereenighde River in 1623 by Dutch merchant and navigator Jan Carstensz.

Biophysical aspects

The Mitchell River and its tributaries have for a long time carved their way westwards through the rugged, weathered highlands of the Great Dividing Range, carrying away sediments to be deposited in the broad floodplains and wetlands of the Gulf Savannah country.

The rivers' waters "pulse" annually with monsoonal rains, seasonally collecting water from across the local tropical rainforests in the highlands to the east; the wet sclerophyll forests in the central uplands; a variety of woodlands plus savannah in the western plains; annually flooding with freshwater, the tidal plains, wetlands, estuaries, and mangroves of the lower Mitchell and coastal plains.

From source to mouth, the Mitchell River is joined by 34 tributaries including the McLeod River, Hodgkinson River, St George River, Dry River, Little Mitchell River, Walsh River, Lynd River, Palmer River and Alice River.