- Dakota County, Minnesota (Wikipedia)
Dakota County is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Minnesota, located in the east central portion of the state. As of the 2020 census, the population was 439,882. The population of Dakota County was estimated to be 447,440 in 2023. The county seat is Hastings. Dakota County is named for the Dakota Sioux tribal bands who inhabited the area.
- Mendota (/mɛnˈdoʊtə/ men-DOH-tə) is a city in Dakota County, Minnesota, United States. The name is a mispronunciation of the Dakota word for the location, bdóte, which in Dakota tradition is the center of the world. The word in this use means “the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers,” and generally “mouth or junction of one river with another.” The population was 198 at the 2010 census.
- Drainage basin (Wikipedia)
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the drainage divide, made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills. A basin may consist of smaller basins that merge at river confluences, forming a hierarchical pattern.