The Black Warrior River at Tuscaloosa

The Black Warrior River is a waterway in west central Alabama. The river rises flows 178 miles to the Tombigbee River, of which the Black Warrior is the primary tributary. The river is named after the Mississippian paramount chief Tuskaloosa, whose name meant Black Warrior in Muskogean. The Black Warrior is impounded along nearly its entire course by a series of locks and dams to form a chain of narrow reservoirs, which not only provide aid to navigation, but hydroelectric power and drinking water.

The river flows through the Black Warrior Basin, a region historically important for the extraction of coal and methane. The cities of Tuscaloosa and Northport grew at the historical head of navigation at the fall line between the Appalachian Highlands and Gulf Coastal Plain. Birmingham, though not directly on the river, became a manufacturing hub and one of the largest cities in the South through use of the Black Warrior for transportation of goods

Overall, watershed of the Black Warrior has an area of 6,275 square miles (16,250 km²).