Mahānādī

Mahānādī ('the great river'), a river of India, rises in the Central Provinces, in 20° 10' N. lat., 82° E. long. After an eastward course of 520 miles, 300 miles of which are navigable, having divided into several branches at or near the town of Cuttack, which forms the head of its delta, it flows east and south-east through the district of that name, and falls by several mouths into the Bay of Bengal. The catchment basin of the Mahānādī is less than 44,000 sq. m., yet its maximum discharge in time of flood equals that of the Ganges—1,800,000 cubic feet per second—and exceeds that of the Mississippi. An elaborate system of canals has been constructed to take advantage of this abundance.