Kankakee River

The Kankakee River is a tributary of the Illinois River, approximately 133 miles long, in the Central Corn Belt Plains of northwestern Indiana and northeastern Illinois in the United States. At one time, the river drained one of the largest wetlands in North America and furnished a significant portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Significantly altered from its original channel, it flows through a primarily rural farming region of reclaimed cropland, south of Lake Michigan.

The Kankakee rises in northwestern Indiana, approximately five miles southwest of South Bend, Indiana. It flows in a straight channelized course, generally southwestward through rural northwestern Indiana, collecting the Yellow River from the south in Starke County, and passing the communities of South Center and English Lake. It forms the border between LaPorte, Porter, and Lake counties on the north and Starke, Jasper, and Newton counties on the south. The river curves westward and ceases to be channelized as it enters Kankakee County in northeastern Illinois. Approximately three miles southeast of the city of Kankakee, it receives the Iroquois River from the south and turns sharply to the northwest for its lower 35 miles . It joins the Des Plaines River from the south to form the Illinois River, approximately 50 miles southwest of Chicago.

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