Fox River (Green Bay tributary)

The Fox River (Menominee: Meskwahkīw-Sīpiah, "Red Earth River"; Ho-Chunk: Nionigera) is a river in eastern Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region of the United States, flowing through the ancestral homeland of the Menominee and Meskwaki peoples. Unusually, the Fox River flows northward—from its headwaters in south-central Wisconsin toward Green Bay and Lake Michigan—a direction resulting from the landscape formed by receding glaciers at the end of the last ice age. Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Fox River valley for at least 13,000 years, since the recession of those glaciers. Prior to European settlement in the late 17th century, the shores of the Fox River and Green Bay were home to roughly half of the estimated 25,000 Native Americans living in present-day Wisconsin.

The river's English name is a translation of Rivière aux Renards (French for "River of the Foxes"), given by explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette because it flowed through the territory of the Meskwaki people, whom the French called Renards. The Meskwaki call themselves Meshkwahkihaki, meaning "the Red-Earths."

The Fox River is the principal tributary of Green Bay, and via the bay, the largest tributary of Lake Michigan. The city of Green Bay, one of the first European settlements in the interior of North America, is on the river at its mouth.