floodplain

thumb|350px|Paraná River floodplain, at its confluence with the headstream of the Paranaíba (on the right) and the Verde River, near Panorama, Brazil thumb|right|A floodplain after a one-in-10-year flood on the Isle of Wight thumb|right|Gravel floodplain of a glacial river near the Snow Mountains in Alaska, 1902 thumb|right|The Laramie River [[meanders across its floodplain in Albany County, Wyoming, 1949]] thumb|right| This aggradational floodplain of a small meandering stream in La Plata County, Colorado, is underlain by silt deposited above a dam formed by a terminal [[moraine left by the Wisconsin Glacier.]] right|thumb|Riparian vegetation on the floodplain of the Lynches River, close to [[Johnsonville, South Carolina. These tupelo and cypress trees show the high-water mark of flooding.]]

A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high discharge. The soils usually consist of clays, silts, sands, and gravels deposited during floods.