Definition of "continental divide" [continental divide]

• An extensive stretch of high ground from each side of which the river systems of a continent flow in opposite directions. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "While wandering around up there we'll also cover the Flattop Mountain Trail from below Fifty Mountain Camp to the middle of the Waterton Valley and the West Flattop Mountain Trail from the continental divide to Dixon Glacier."
• "The Northern Pacific railroad crosses the continental divide twenty miles west of Helena, at an elevation of 5573 feet; the Great Northern main line crosses at an elevation of 5202, and the Montana Central, a branch of the last-named system, near Butte, at an elevation of 6343."