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Major Land Resource Area 131A

Major Land Resource Area

Accessed: 04/19/2026

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Description

MLRA 131A, Southern Mississippi River Alluvium, is in Louisiana (32 percent), Arkansas (26 percent), Mississippi (26 percent), Missouri (12 percent), Tennessee (3 percent), and Kentucky (1 percent). A small part of Illinois also is in the area. This MLRA makes up about 29,555 square miles (76,585 square kilometers). It includes the towns or cities of Lake Providence, Morgan City, and Houma, Louisiana; Greenville, Yazoo City, and Clarksville, Mississippi; Eudora, Helena, and West Memphis, Arkansas; Caruthersville, Kennett, and Sikeston, Missouri; and the west edge of Memphis, Tennessee. The cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, are just outside this area. This area makes up most of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain Section of the Coastal Plain Province of the Atlantic Plain. It is on the alluvial plain along the lower Mississippi River, south of its confluence with the Ohio River. The landforms in the area are level or depressional to very gently undulating alluvial plains, backswamps, oxbows, natural levees, and terraces. The parts of the MLRA south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, are on a deltaic plain. The Mississippi River has the third largest drainage basin in the world, exceeded in size only by the watersheds of the Amazon and Congo Rivers. It drains 41 percent of the 48 contiguous states of the United States. The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles, includes all or parts of 31 states and two Canadian provinces, and roughly resembles a funnel which has its spout at the Gulf of Mexico. Waters from as far east as New York and as far west as Montana contribute to flows in the lower river. For the purpose of ecological site concepts, the MLRA was separated by the Technical team into six sub-regions based on various assemblages of data reviewed.

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