river trade
Flowing water business
River trade is commerce conducted along waterways, using rivers as transportation routes for goods and passengers.
Before railroads, river trade drove the economies of cities like St.
Louis and New Orleans: The Mississippi River trade made fortunes in cotton and grain.
The term evokes an era of steamboats, flatboats, and bustling river ports.
- bargeFlat freight vessel
- keelboatRidged-hull river cargo vessel
- flatboatLevel-bottomed river craft
- cargo holdVessel's storage area
- ferryVessel for scheduled crossings
canal boat · floating market · cargo ship · trading post · silk road · oil transport · paddle steamer · steam engine · settlement · tugboat · dock workers · levee · waterway · rafts · spices · wharf · merchant fleet · navigation
- ancient tradeSilk Road, caravan routes, sea routes, maritime routes, shipping lanes
- ancient traveltravelers, Silk Road, pilgrims, caravans, horses
- Congo Rivertributaries, Kinshasa, Brazzaville, rapids, Congo Basin
- Medieval GermanyHoly Roman Empire, Charlemagne, Franconia, guild system, Swabia
- Midwest historyChicago, Detroit, Great Lakes, pioneers, homesteaders
- Rhine HistoryRhineland, Cologne, Koblenz, Bonn, Trier
river tradecaravan trade
Goods moved by traveling groups
road transport · portage · trucking · air freight · carriage trade
river tradeinternational trade
Exchange across national boundaries
global commerce · long-distance trade · world trade · foreign trade