Talk:Grand River (Michigan)

Where is this River?
The problem I have with the lead is that Michigan is a big state, and knowing a river is long doesn't tell me where it is on say, a road map. A river can be wide, long, high (in elevation), low, big (waterflow), north-south or east-west; it can flow into or out of Lake Michigan; it can be well, anywhere. Reading the lead we know virtually nothing. I don't know where any of the towns therough which it flows, because I live on the west coast. But I know where Lake Michigan is. A tributary of the lake means it flows into, not out of the lake. We need to take a larger view. Sbalfour (talk) 01:08, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I've done a little more research. The Grand is one of three principal tributaries of Lake Michigan. There are dozens to hundreds of tributaries counting streams and creeks, but they're tiny. The three significant ones mentioned everywhere are Fox-Wolf of Green Bay, Kalamazoo and Grand River. If the Fox and Wolf are considered separate, and they may well be, then the Grand River is the largest tributary of Lake Michigan by both discharge and drainage basin size. The Fox-Wolf doesn't flow directly into the Lake, but into Green Bay, and the bay's water exchange with Lake Michigan is complicated, for purposes of pesticide measurement, erosion, sedimentation, etc. Sbalfour (talk) 15:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Description section is a mishmash
Most of the section describes a promotional event, rather than the river. There is no clear description of the river's course, including headwaters, mouth location, which way it flows (N, S, E, W?), where in the state it is located with respect to major landmarks (landmarks are NOT cities). The whole article needs cleaned up and reorged. Sbalfour (talk) 01:53, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The "Course" section literally describes its headwaters and the counties through which it flows. Why are you so interested in this page? --Criticalthinker (talk) 06:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I separated the Course section from the Description section, so now it's clear. I'm an Ohio/Indiana geographer and historian, and Michigan is within my purview. Sbalfour (talk) 15:30, 28 February 2019 (UTC)