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Place Name
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Susquehanna
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Place Status (Type)
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river
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Location
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New York, United States, North America
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Latitude
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unknown
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Longitude
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unknown
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Susquehanna
, river, 444 mi/715 km
long; rising in Otsego L., central N.Y., and winding SE and SW through
E central Pa. to Chesapeake Bay near Havre de Grace, Md. The bay is the
drowned lower course of the river that has resulted from a
post-Pleistocene rise in sea level. The West Branch
(c.160 mi/257 km), which rises in the
Allegheny Mts., W Pa., and follows a circuitous course E to Sunbury,
Pa., is the river's chief tributary in Pa. The Susquehanna R.
traverses an anthracite coal region, which in the 19th cent. spawned
the major heavy industrial coal and steel core of the U.S.; the many
significant mining and industrial cities on its banks were forced to
scale down production as the steel and coal industries declined in the
early 1980s. These include Binghamton and Oswego, N.Y., and Pittston,
Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, and Scranton (on the Lackawanna tributary),
Pa. The shallow, swift-flowing river is unsuited for navigation.
Several hydroelectric power plants are located on the Susquehanna; the
Conowingo plant (Md.) is one of the largest non-Federal power stations
in the nation. The Susquehanna and its tributaries have extensive
flood-control works. However in June 1972, the river, swollen by the
torrential rains of Hurricane Agnes, breached 40-ft/12-m
dikes in places and flooded much of the basin, causing one of the
greatest flood disasters in U.S. history.
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