[1] Its waters drain from the tributaries of the Green Swamp near the town of Shallotte, flowing south for approximately nine miles to empty into the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

[3] Approximately one-mile southwest of the river's mouth lies the Shallotte Inlet which connects the Intracostal Waterway to Long Bay of the Atlantic Ocean.

The inlet separates Holden Beach Isle from Ocean Islef; this mouth of the Shallotte River before the Intracoastal Waterway's construction and decades of shifting sands.

[2] Waves and tides frequently move its bottom sediments which consists of course and medium sand, with traces of shell fragments.

[5] In the 1970s, the United States Army Corps of Engineers determined that 30,000 cubic yards had to be dredged every two years to maintains the river's channel.