Alabama

River in southern Alabama, formed by the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers north of Montgomery and joining the Tombigbee to form the Mobile River; length 507 km/315 mi. Its valley was home to Creek tribes, one of which, the Alibamu or Alabama, gave its name to the river and eventually to the state.

Course It winds west and southwest across the Gulf Coastal Plain past Selma and Cahaba (where the Cahaba River joins it) and joins the Tombigbee some 64 km/40 mi above Mobile.

History In the 18th century the French and British used the Alabama in the fur trade, and in the 19th century it carried cotton from the Black Belt to Mobile. The Coosa-Alabama system's many locks and dams contributed greatly to the 20th-century economic development of the state.