A Water Divide, also known as a Drainage Divide, is a ridge line at the highest elevation through a region of land, and commonly called the height of land ¹ along its highlands traverse. This locality of the height of land, will thus serve as a divide in a continental area which separates one or more watershed areas.

On rugged land, a water divide lies along a topographical ridge which many be in the form of one or more mountain ranges (and or hills) and such elevated terrain is known as a dividing range. On flat terrain, the water divide line may prover more difficult to determine, but will always have some form of high point from which the direction of water flow is divided into separate directions.