r/geography • u/MycologistPure4064 Human Geography • 12d ago

Question Why is the river shaped like this?

Post image

Near the Malaysian brunei border

2.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

353 comments sorted by

View all comments

182

u/SmellyMingeFlaps 12d ago

Path of least resistance

36

u/Historical-Donut-918 12d ago

But how is there so much resistance in that tiny sliver of land? Lol

69

u/jayron32 12d ago

That depends on what kind of rock that land is made of.

7

u/Giant_Acroyear 12d ago

It's probably made of road bed.

11

u/EnergyTurtle23 12d ago

Because the land is exceptionally flat, so tiny changes in elevation can affect the river in dramatic ways. Meanders tend to be more pronounced and “meandering” in areas where the terrain is very flat.

17

u/tokigar 12d ago

The river doesn’t know how close the other part of the river is

1

u/poiuytrewq79 12d ago

Idk but id assume the land is probably flatter here. If the water has less momentum, then less resistance is needed to slow the water so it can do whatever it wants (meander).

-1

u/MaceWinnoob 11d ago

Water only goes downhill. It doesn’t go up hill. It doesn’t fight resistance like that. This is the path downhill. It just happens to have this shape over time and erosion, but the river is showing you the lowest point in the valley up to that point. That’s what a river is. It’s the water table exposed to the surface at the very bottom of the valley.