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This study presents the results of a detailed river flow fluctuation analysis on daily records from 14 stations in the Flint River Basin in Georgia in the southeastern United States with special focus on the effect of watershed area on long memory of river flow fluctuations. The areas of the watersheds draining to the stations range from 23 to 19,606 km2. The climatic and seasonal trends are removed using the detrended fluctuation analysis technique. Results show that (1) river flow fluctuations have two distinct scaling regimes, and the scaling break is delayed for large watershed areas; (2) large watersheds have more persistent river flow fluctuations and stronger long memory (i.e., for lag times beyond the scale break) than small watersheds do; (3) the long memory of river flow fluctuations does not come from the long memory of precipitation; (4) a linear reservoir unit hydrograph transfer function approach does not capture correctly the basin processes that convert short-memory precipitation to long-memory streamflow; and (5) the degree of multifractality of river flow fluctuations decreases with increasing watershed area. The results clearly indicate that watershed area is an important factor in the long-memory studies of streamflow such as streamflow prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]