Is this really a world geography fact?

Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

What else can I read about it?

The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Chicago reversed a river to protect its drinking water

Engineers dug a canal in 1900 so the Chicago River ran away from Lake Michigan instead of into it The city drew its drinking water from the lake while dumping sewage into the same river. The sanitary and ship canal carried the flow west towards the Mississippi basin, which cleaned up the water supply. The change also shifted the boundary between two great drainage basins. It sits in Mondo's world geography collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

Go further

World Geography trivia Technology trivia

More facts like this

The Great Salt Lake shrank from Lake BonnevilleIt is the remnant of Lake Bonneville, which once covered much of what is now Utah The Corinth Canal is too narrow for modern shipsIts channel is about 24 metres wide at water level, so most commercial vessels cannot use it The Welland Canal lifts ships nearly 100 metresEight locks raise vessels over the Niagara Escarpment between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie The Nile is the longest river in the worldSpanning over 6,600 kilometres, the Nile flows northwards through eleven African nations before reaching the Mediterranean Sea.The Amazon River carries more water than any other riverThe Amazon accounts for roughly twenty per cent of the total discharge of all rivers on Earth into the oceans.The Danube flows through or borders more countries than any riverOriginating in Germany Black Forest, the Danube River touches ten distinct European nations along its route.

Tags: canals, rivers, united-states

Chicago reversed a river to protect its drinking water: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Engineers dug a canal in 1900 so the Chicago River ran away from Lake Michigan instead of into it. The figure is taken from Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a world geography fact?: Yes. It sits on the World Geography shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.