LIST OF RIVERS BY LENGTH

This is a 'list of the longest rivers on Earth'. It includes river systems over 1,000 kilometers.

Contents

Definition of length

List of rivers longer than 1000 km

Notes

River systems that may have existed in the past

Amazon-Congo

Nile

West Siberian Glacial Lake drainage

See also

References

Notes

Definition of length

The length of a river is not always easy to calculate. It depends on the identification of the source, the identification of the mouth, and the precise measurement of the river length between source and mouth. As a result, the length measurements of many rivers are only approximations. In particular, there has for long been disagreement whether the Amazon or the Nile is the world's longest river.
The source of a river may be hard to determine because a river typically has many tributaries. Among the many sources, the one that is farthest away from the mouth is considered as the source of the river, thus giving a maximal river length. In practice, the tributary with the farthest source is not always the one given the name of the river. For example, the farthest source of the Mississippi River system is the source of the Jefferson River, a tributary of the Missouri River which in turn is a tributary of the Mississippi. However, a different (and shorter) tributary is identified as the Mississippi. When the river is measured from mouth to farthest source, it is called the ''Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson''. Also, it is hard to state exactly where a river begins as very often rivers are formed by seasonal streams, swamps, or changing lakes. In this article, ''length'' means the length of the river system, including all tributaries.
The mouth of a river may be hard to determine in cases where the river has a large estuary that gradually widens and opens into the ocean; examples are the River Plate and the Saint Lawrence River. Some rivers do not have a mouth; instead they dwindle to very low water volume and eventually evaporate, or sink into an aquifer, or get diverted for agriculture. The exact point where these rivers end will vary seasonally.
The length of a river between source and mouth may be hard to determine because of a lack of precise maps. In these cases, the measured length of a river will depend on the scale of the map on which the measurement is based; in general, due to the fractal quality of a river, the larger the scale, the longer the resulting length measurement. This issue was discovered by Lewis Fry Richardson and also applies when measuring borders between countries and coastlines. Ideally, length measurements should be based on maps that are of a large enough scale to show the width of the river, and the path measured is the path a small boat would take down the middle of the river.
Even when precise maps are available, the length measurement is not always clear. A river may have multiple arms. It may depend on whether the center or the edge of the river is taken as reference point. It may not be clear how to measure the length through a lake: this may also vary by season. These points make it difficult, if not impossible, to get a precise (or comparable ) measurement of the length of a river or stream.

List of rivers longer than 1000 km

One should take the aforementioned discussion into account when using the data in the following table. For most rivers, different sources provide conflicting information on the length of a river system. The information in different sources is between parentheses.

Continent color key Africa Asia Australia Europe North America South America

	River	Length (km)	Length (miles)	Drainage area (km²)	Average discharge (m³/s)	Outflow	Countries in the drainage basin
1. ★ ★	Nile	6,650	4,135	2,870,000	5,100	Mediterranean Sea	Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo
2. ★ ★	Amazon	6,400	3,980	6,915,000	219,000	Atlantic Ocean	Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela
3.	Yangtze (Chang Jiang)	6,300	3,917	1,800,000	31,900	East China Sea	P.R. China
4.	Mississippi - Missouri	6,275	3,902	2,980,000	16,200	Gulf of Mexico	United States (98.5%), Canada (1.5%)
5.	Yenisei - Angara - Selenga	5,539	3,445	2,580,000	19,600	Kara Sea	Russia, Mongolia
6.	Yellow (Huang He)	5,464	3,398	745,000	2,110	Bohai Sea (Balhae)	P.R. China
7.	Ob - Irtysh	5,410	3,364	2,990,000	12,800	Gulf of Ob	Russia, Kazakhstan, P.R. China
8.	Congo - Chambeshi (Zaire)	4,700	2,922	3,680,000	41,800	Atlantic Ocean	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Angola, Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Cameroon, Zambia, Burundi, Rwanda
9.	Amur - Argun (Heilong Jiang)	4,444	2,763	1,855,000	11,400	Sea of Okhotsk	Russia, P.R. China, Mongolia
10.	Lena	4,400	2,736	2,490,000	17,100	Laptev Sea	Russia
11.	Mekong (Lancang Jiang)	4,350	2,705	810,000	16,000	South China Sea	Laos, Thailand, P.R. China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar
12.	Mackenzie - Peace - Finlay	4,241	2,637	1,790,000	10,300	Beaufort Sea	Canada
13.	Niger	4,200	2,611	2,090,000	9,570	Gulf of Guinea	Nigeria (26.6%), Mali (25.6%), Niger (23.6%), Algeria (7.6%), Guinea (4.5%), Cameroon (4.2%), Burkina Faso (3.9%), Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Chad
14.	Paraná (Río de la Plata)	3,998	2,486	3,100,000	25,700	Atlantic Ocean	Brazil (46.7%), Argentina (27.7%), Paraguay (13.5%), Bolivia (8.3%), Uruguay (3.8%)
15.	Murray - Darling	3,750	2,332	1,061,000	767	Indian Ocean	Australia
16.	Volga	3,645	2,266	1,380,000	8,080	Caspian Sea	Russia (99.8%), Kazakhstan (minor), Belarus (minor)
17.	Shatt al-Arab - Euphrates	3,596	2,236	884,000	856	Persian Gulf	Iraq (40.5%), Turkey (24.8%), Iran (19.7%), Syria (14.7%)
18.	Purus	3,379	2,101	63,166	8,400	Amazon	Brazil, Peru
19.	Madeira - Mamoré	3,239	2,014	850,000	17,000	Amazon	Brazil, Bolivia, Peru
20.	Yukon	3,184	1,980	850,000	6,210	Bering Sea	United States (59.8%), Canada (40.2%)
21.	Indus (Sindhu)	3,180	1,976	960,000	7,160	Arabian Sea	Pakistan, India, P. R. China, disputed territory (Kashmir), Afghanistan (6.3%)
22.	São Francisco	3,180 ★ (2,900)	1,976 ★ (1,802)	610,000	3,300	Atlantic Ocean	Brazil
23.	Syr Darya - Naryn	3,078	1,913	219,000	703	Aral Sea	Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
24.	Salween (Nu Jiang)	3,060	1,901	324,000	3,153[1]	Andaman Sea	P.R. China (52.4%), Myanmar (43.9%), Thailand (3.7%)
25.	Saint Lawrence - Niagara-Detroit-Saint Clair-Saint Marys-Saint Louis	3,058	1,900	1,030,000	10,100	Gulf of Saint Lawrence	Canada (52.1%), United States (47.9%)
26.	Rio Grande	3,057 (2,896)	1,900 (1,799)	570,000	82	Gulf of Mexico	United States (52.1%), Mexico (47.9%)
27.	Lower Tunguska	2,989	1,857	473,000	3,600	Yenisei	Russia
28.	Brahmaputra	2,948 ★	1,832 ★	1,730,000	19,200[2]	Bay of Bengal	India (58.0%), P.R. China (19.7%), Nepal (9.0%), Bangladesh (6.6%), Disputed India/P.R. China (4.2%), Bhutan (2.4%)
29.	Danube	2,850 ★	1,771 ★	817,000	7,130	Black Sea	Romania (28.9%), Hungary (11.7%), Austria (10.3%), Serbia (10.3%), Germany (7.5%), Slovakia (5.8%), Bulgaria (5.2%), Bosnia and Herzegovina (4.8%), Croatia (4.5%), Ukraine (3.8%), Czech Republic (2.6%), Slovenia (2.2%), Moldova (1.7%), Switzerland (0.32%), Italy (0.15%), Poland (0.09%), Albania (0.03%)
30.	Tocantins	2,699	1,677	1,400,000	13,598	Atlantic Ocean, Amazon	Brazil
31.	Zambezi (Zambesi)	2,693 ★	1,673 ★	1,330,000	4,880	Mozambique Channel	Zambia (41.6%), Angola (18.4%), Zimbabwe (15.6%), Mozambique (11.8%), Malawi (8.0%), Tanzania (2.0%), Namibia, Botswana
32.	Vilyuy	2,650	1,647	454,000	1,480	Lena	Russia
33.	Araguaia	2,627	1,632	358,125	6,172	Tocantins	Brazil
34.	Amu Darya	2,620	1,628	534,739	1,400	Aral Sea	Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan
35.	Japurá (Rio Yapurá)	2,615 ★	1,625 ★	242,259	6,000	Amazon	Brazil, Colombia
36.	Nelson - Saskatchewan	2,570	1,597	1,093,000	2,575	Hudson Bay	Canada
37.	Paraguay (Rio Paraguay)	2,549	1,584	900,000	4,300	Paraná	Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina
38.	Kolyma	2,513	1,562	644,000	3,800	East Siberian Sea	Russia
39.	Ganges	2,510	1,560	907,000	12,037[3]	Brahmaputra, Bay of Bengal	India, Bangladesh, Nepal
40.	Pilcomayo	2,500	1,553	270,000		Paraguay	Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia
41.	Upper Ob	2,490	1,547			Ob	Russia
42.	Ishim	2,450	1,522	177,000	56	Irtysh	Kazakhstan, Russia
43.	Juruá	2,410	1,498	200,000	6,000	Amazon	Peru, Brazil
44.	Ural	2,428	1,509	237,000	475	Caspian Sea	Russia, Kazakhstan
45.	Arkansas	2,348	1,459	505,000 (435,122)	1066	Mississippi	United States
46.	Ubangi - Uele	2,300	1,429			Congo	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic
47.	Olenyok	2,292	1,424			Laptev Sea	Russia
48.	Dnieper	2,287	1,421	516,300	1,670	Black Sea	Russia, Belarus, Ukraine
49.	Aldan	2,273	1,412	729,000		Lena	Russia
50.	Negro	2,250	1,450	720,114	26,700	Amazon	Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia
51.	Columbia	2,250 (1,953)	1,450 (1,214)	415,211	7400	Pacific Ocean	United States, Canada
52.	Colorado (western U.S.)	2,333	1,450	390,000	1,200	Gulf of California	United States, Mexico
53.	Pearl - Xi Jiang	2,200	1,376	437,000	13,600	South China Sea	P.R. China (98.5%), Vietnam (1.5%)
54.	Red	2,188	1,360			Mississippi	United States
55.	Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy)	2,170	1,348	411,000	13,000	Andaman Sea	Myanmar
56.	Kasai	2,153	1,338			Congo	Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo
57.	Ohio - Allegheny	2,102	1,306	490,603		Mississippi	United States
58.	Orinoco	2,101	1,306	880,000	30,000	Atlantic Ocean	Venezuela, Colombia
59.	Tarim	2,100	1,305	557,000		Lop Nur	P. R. China
60.	Xingu	2,100	1,305			Amazon	Brazil
61.	Orange	2,092	1,300			Atlantic Ocean	South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho
62.	Northern Salado	2,010	1,249			Paraná	Argentina
63.	Vitim	1,978	1,229			Lena	Russia
64.	Tigris	1,950	1,212			Shatt al-Arab	Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran
65.	Songhua	1,927	1,197			Amur	P. R. China
66.	Tapajós	1,900	1,181			Amazon	Brazil
67.	Don	1,870	1,162	425,600	935	Sea of Azov	Russia
68.	Stony Tunguska	1,865	1,159	240,000		Yenisei	Russia
69.	Pechora	1,809	1,124	322,000		Barents Sea	Russia
70.	Kama	1,805	1,122	507,000		Volga	Russia
71.	Limpopo	1,800	1,118	413,000		Indian Ocean	Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana
72.	Guaporé	1,749	1,087			Mamoré	Brazil, Bolivia
73.	Indigirka	1,726	1,072	360,400	1,810	East Siberian Sea	Russia
74.	Snake	1,670	1,038	279,719	1,611	Columbia	United States
75.	Senegal	1,641	1,020	419,659		Atlantic Ocean	Senegal, Mali, Mauritania
76.	Uruguay	1,610	1,000	370,000		Atlantic Ocean	Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil
77.	Blue Nile	1,600	994			Nile	Ethiopia, Sudan
77.	Churchill	1,600	994			Hudson Bay	Canada
77.	Khatanga	1,600	994			Laptev Sea	Russia
77.	Okavango	1,600	994			Okavango Delta	Namibia, Angola, Botswana
77.	Volta	1,600	994			Gulf of Guinea	Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin
82.	Beni	1,599	994			Madeira	Bolivia
83.	Platte	1,594	990			Missouri	United States
84.	Tobol	1,591	989			Irtysh	Kazakhstan, Russia
85.	Jubba - Shebelle	1,580 ★	982 ★			Indian Ocean	Ethiopia, Somalia
86.	Içá (Putumayo)	1,575	979			Amazon	Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador
87.	Magdalena	1,550	963			Caribbean Sea	Colombia
88.	Han	1,532	952			Yangtze	P. R. China
89.	Lomami	1,500	932			Congo	Democratic Republic of the Congo
89.	Oka	1,500	932			Volga	Russia
90.	Pecos	1,490	926			Rio Grande	United States
91.	Upper Yenisei	1,480	920			Yenisei	Russia, Mongolia
92.	Godavari	1,465	910			Bay of Bengal	India
93.	Colorado (Texas)	1,438	894			Gulf of Mexico	United States
94.	Río Grande (Guapay)	1,438	894			Ichilo	Bolivia
95.	Belaya	1,420	882			Kama	Russia
96.	Cooper - Barcoo	1,420	880			Lake Eyre	Australia
97.	Marañón	1,415	879			Amazon	Peru
98.	Dniester	1,411 (1,352)	877 (840)			Black Sea	Ukraine, Moldova
99.	Benue	1,400	870			Niger	Cameroon, Nigeria
99.	Ili (Yili)	1,400	870			Lake Balkhash	P. R. China, Kazakhstan
99.	Warburton - Georgina	1,400	870			Lake Eyre	Australia
102.	Yamuna	1,376	855			Ganges	India
103.	Sutlej	1,370	851			Chenab	China, India, Pakistan
103.	Vyatka	1,370	851			Kama	Russia
105.	Fraser	1,368	850			Pacific Ocean	Canada
106.	Kura	1,364	848			Caspian Sea	Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Iran
107.	Grande	1,360	845			Paraná	Brazil
108.	Brazos	1,352	840			Gulf of Mexico	United States
109.	Liao	1,345	836			Bohai Sea	P. R. China
110.	Yalong	1,323	822			Yangtze	P. R. China
111.	Iguaçu	1,320	820			Paraná	Brazil, Argentina
111.	Olyokma	1,320	820			Lena	Russia
111.	Rhine	1,320	820	198,735	2330	North Sea	Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Italy
114.	Northern Dvina - Sukhona	1,302	809	357,052	3332	White Sea	Russia
115.	Krishna	1,300	808			Bay of Bengal	India
115.	Iriri	1,300	808			Xingu	Brazil
117.	Narmada	1,289	801			Arabian Sea	India
118.	Ottawa	1,271	790			Saint Lawrence	Canada
119.	Zeya	1,242	772			Amur	Russia
120.	Juruena	1,240	771			Tapajós	Brazil
121.	Upper Mississippi	1,236	768			Mississippi	United States
122.	Athabasca	1,231	765			Mackenzie	Canada
122.	Elbe - Vltava	1,231	765	148,268	711	North Sea	Germany, Czech Republic
124.	Canadian	1,223	760			Arkansas	United States
125.	North Saskatchewan	1,220	758			Saskatchewan	Canada
126.	Vaal	1,210	752			Orange	South Africa
127.	Shire	1,200	746			Zambezi	Mozambique, Malawi
128.	Nen (Nonni)	1,190	739			Songhua	P. R. China
129.	Green	1,175	730			Colorado (western U.S.)	United States
130.	Milk	1,173	729			Missouri	United States, Canada
131.	Chindwin	1,158	720			Ayeyarwady	Myanmar
132.	James (Dakotas)	1,143	710			Missouri	United States
132.	Kapuas	1,143	710			South China Sea	Indonesia
134.	Helmand	1,130	702			Hamun-i-Helmand	Afghanistan, Iran
134.	Madre de Dios	1,130	702			Madeira	Peru, Bolivia
134.	Tietê	1,130	702			Paraná	Brazil
134.	Vychegda	1,130	702			Northern Dvina	Russia
138.	Sepik	1,126	700	77,700		Pacific Ocean	Papua New Guinea, Indonesia
139.	Cimarron	1,123	698			Arkansas	United States
140.	Anadyr	1,120	696			Gulf of Anadyr	Russia
141.	Liard	1,115	693			Mackenzie	Canada
142.	White	1,102	685			Mississippi	United States
143.	Huallaga	1,100	684			Marañón	Peru
144.	Gambia	1,094	680			Atlantic Ocean	The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea
145.	Chenab	1,086	675			Indus	India, Pakistan
146.	Yellowstone	1,080	671			Missouri	United States
147.	Donets	1,078 (1,053)	670 (654)			Don	Ukraine, Russia
148.	Bermejo	1,050	652			Paraguay	Argentina, Bolivia
148.	Fly	1,050	652			Gulf of Papua	Papua New Guinea, Indonesia
148.	Guaviare	1,050	652			Orinoco	Colombia
148.	Kuskokwim	1,050	652			Bering Sea	United States
152.	Tennessee	1,049	652			Ohio	United States
153.	Daugava	1,020	634			Gulf of Riga	Latvia, Belarus, Russia
154.	Gila	1,015	631			Colorado (western U.S.)	United States
155.	Vistula	1,014	630			Baltic Sea	Poland
156.	Loire	1,012	629			Atlantic Ocean	France
157.	Essequibo	1,010	628			Atlantic Ocean	Guyana
157.	Khoper	1,010	628			Don	Russia
159.	Tagus (Tajo/Tejo)	1,006	625			Atlantic Ocean	Spain, Portugal
160.	Colorado (Argentina)	1,000	620			Atlantic Ocean	Argentina

Notes

★
★ When the length of a river is followed by an asterisk (
★ ), it is an average of multiple sources. If the difference in lengths between given sources is significant, all lengths are listed. Likewise, if the lengths from secondary sources are similar, they are averaged and that figure has an asterisk.

★
★
★ Most scientists have considered the Nile to be the longest river on Earth, and some believe a fair statement is that the Nile is the longest in the world and the Amazon is the strongest. The big differences in the recorded length of the Amazon depends on whether or not it is valid to take a course south of the Ilha de Marajó at the Amazon's mouth.

★
★
★ New evidence, (dated Saturday 16 June 2007) obtained from a high-altitude scientific venture in the Andes, claims that the Amazon is longer than the Nile by 100km, with its longest headwater being the Carhuasanta stream originating in the south of Peru on the Nevado Mismi mountain's northern slopes and flowing into the Río Apurímac, and not from a place in the north of Peru as was thought before: this adds about 284 km = 176 miles to the length of the Amazon.^[4]; but this is likely a confused re-description of what was known before, as atlas maps made long before this show Amazon headwaters in this position.

★ Generally, the most commonly used/anglicised name of the river is used. The name in a native language or alternate spelling may be shown.

★ The exact percentage of each river in countries may be disputed (including the effects of political frontier disputes) or unknown.

The Mississippi River just north of St. Louis.

Saint Lawrence River along the New York-Quebec border.

River systems that may have existed in the past

Amazon-Congo

The Amazon basin formerly drained westwards into the Pacific Ocean, until the Andes rose and reversed the drainage.
^[5]
The Congo basin is completely surrounded by high land, except for its long narrow exit valley past Kinshasa, including waterfalls around Manyanga. That gives the impression that most of the Congo basin was formerly on a much higher land level and that it was rejuvenated by much of its lower course being removed.

In Permian and early Triassic times Africa and South America were close against each other with no sea between (see continental drift and plate tectonics), and the Congo probably drained into the Amazon basin and eventually into the Pacific. Including part of its course that was completely lost when the South Atlantic opened, its total course may have been anything up to approximately 12,000 km (7,500 miles) long.

Nile

The Virunga Volcanoes started to form in the Miocene period, blocking the African Rift Valley. Before that, the water which now accumulates in Lake Tanganyika drained northwards into the Albert Nile, which would make the Nile somewhere around 1,500 km (900 miles) longer, with its longest headwater in Zambia.
If this blockage did not happen until after the Messinian salinity crisis started, add a hundred miles or more for the added northern extension of the Nile flowing across the dry bed of the Mediterranean Sea during the Messinian salinity crisis.

West Siberian Glacial Lake drainage

This river would have been about 6000 miles = 10000 km long, in the last Ice Age. See West Siberian Glacial Lake. Its longest headwater was the Selenga river of Mongolia: it drained through ice-dammed lakes and the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.

See also

★ D River and Roe River, both of which are claimed to be the world's shortest river.

★ Lake

★ Ocean

★ River

★ Waterway

★ List of drainage basins by area

★ List of rivers by average discharge

★ Eridanus (geology) (a big river where the Baltic Sea is now)

References

★ Time Almanac 2004

★ Principal Rivers of the World

★ EarthTrends Watersheds of the World World Resources Institute

★ Amazon river 'longer than Nile' (BBC)

Notes

1. Impact of Humans on the Flux of Terrestrial Sediment to the Global Coastal Ocean
2. River and Drainage System of Bangladesh
3. http://www.grdc.sr.unh.edu/html/Polygons/P2846800.html
4. Daily Telegraph, Monday 18 June 2007, page 18
5. Amazon river flowed into the Pacific millions of years ago