Katherine River is located in the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

, Australia. Its headwaters are in Nitmiluk National Park

Nitmiluk National Park

Nitmiluk National Park which is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 244 km southeast of Darwin, has been established around a series of gorges on the Katherine River and Edith Falls...

, it flows through the town of Katherine

Katherine, Northern Territory

Katherine is a town situated southeast of Darwin in the "Top End" of Australia in the Northern Territory. It is the fourth largest settlement in the Territory after the capital Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs...

, and is a major tributary of the Daly River.

The first European explorer to see the river was John McDouall Stuart

John McDouall Stuart

John McDouall Stuart was one of the most accomplished and famous of all Australia's inland explorers. Stuart led the first successful expedition to traverse the Australian mainland from south to north and return, and the first to do so from a starting point in South Australia, achieving this...

 in 1862. He named it Katherine after the second daughter of expedition sponsor John Chambers.

In late January, 1998, heavy rain associated with Cyclone Les raised the level of the river by more than 20 metres and flooded a large part of Katherine town. A more recent flood on 6 April 2006 caused a state of emergency to be declared. During this event the river peaked at a height of just below 19 metres at the Katherine bridge on the Stuart Highway

Stuart Highway

The Stuart Highway is one of Australia's major highways. It is a segment of Australia's Highway 1 extending from Darwin, Northern Territory, in the north, via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, to Port Augusta, South Australia, in the south—a distance of...

.