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The South Platte River is a river in the states of Colorado and Nebraska in the western United States. Its confluence with the North Platte River in western Nebraska forms the Platte River.
The river is the major avenue of drainage for the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains along the Colorado Front Range. Its valley along the foothills in Colorado has provided for agriculture in an area of the Great Plains that is otherwise arid. Its drainage basin includes a portion of southeastern Wyoming.
The South Platte rises in northern Park County, Colorado, on the south side of Hoosier Pass, north of the town of Fairplay. It flows southeastward across the South Park region of Colorado, then turns northeastward, passing through a canyon approximately 50 miles in length before emerging from the foothills southeast of the town Littleton, where it is dammed to form the Chatfield Reservoir.
It flows through central Denver, which was founded along its banks at its confluence with Cherry Creek, and then northward past the communities of Brighton and Fort Lupton. South of the city of Greeley, it is joined by the Big Thompson River, and approximately five miles downstream by the Cache La Poudre River.
East of Greeley it turns eastward, flowing across the Colorado Eastern Plains, past the towns of Fort Morgan and Brush, where it turns northeastward, flowing past the town of Sterling and into Nebraska near the town of Julesburg.
In Nebraska, it passes south of the town of Ogallala and joins the North Platte near the town of North Platte, Nebraska.
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