Rivers of England

This is a list of rivers of England, organised geographically and taken anti-clockwise around the English coast where the various rivers discharge into the surrounding seas, from the Solway Firth on the Scottish border to the Welsh Dee on the Welsh border, and again from the Wye on the Welsh border anti-clockwise to the Tweed on the Scottish border.

Tributaries are listed down the page in an upstream direction. The main stem (or principal) river of a catchment is labelled as (MS), left-bank tributaries are indicated by (L), right-bank tributaries by (R). Note that in general usage, the 'left (or right) bank of a river' refers to the left (or right) hand bank, as seen when looking downstream. Where a named river derives from the confluence of two differently named rivers these are labelled as (Ls) and (Rs) for the left and right forks (the rivers on the left and right, relative to an observer facing downstream). A prime example is the River Tyne (MS), the confluence of the South Tyne (Rs) and the North Tyne (Ls) near Hexham. Those few watercourses (mainly in the Thames catchment) which branch off a major channel and then rejoin it or another watercourse further downstream are known as distributaries or anabranches and are labelled (d).

The list is (or at least will be when completed) essentially a list of the main rivers of England (as defined by the Environment Agency) and which includes those named watercourses for which the Environment Agency has a flood defence function. Difficulties arise otherwise in determining what should and what should not be included. Some minor watercourses are included in the list, especially if they are named as 'river'- such examples may be labelled (m).

For simplicity, they are divided here by the coastal sections within which each river system discharges to the sea. In the case of the rivers which straddle the borders with Scotland and Wales, such as the Border Esk, Tweed, Dee, Severn and Wye, only those tributaries which lie at least partly in England are included.

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