World’s Longest Rivers - List of Longest Rivers in the World

Here is a list of the top 10 longest rivers in the world. As you can see, they often travel through more than one country, and most of the continents of the world are represented in the table below.

Do you know which is the longest river in the world? The River Nile is the longest river that is 6650 kilometres in length. It empties into the Mediterranean Sea and crosses both the Equator and Tropic Of Cancer. 

Longest Rivers of The World

The table given below enlists the top 10 longest rivers in the world along with the length of each river, drainage area, outflow, their source and the countries they touch or flow through.

Rank	River	Length (km2)	Length (miles)	Drainage area	Average discharge	Outflow	Countries in the drainage basin
1.	Nile–White Nile–Kagera–Nyabarongo–Mwogo–Rukarara	6,650	4,130	32,54,555	2,800	Mediterranean	Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan
2.	Amazon–Ucayali–Tambo–Ene–Mantaro	6,400	3,976	70,00,000	209,000	Atlantic Ocean	Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana
3.	Yangtze–Jinsha–Tongtian–Dangqu	6,300	3,917	18,00,000	30,166	East China Sea	China
4.	Mississippi–Missouri–Jefferson–Beaverhead–Red Rock–Hell Roaring	6,275	3,902	29,80,000	16,792	Gulf of Mexico	United States (98.5%), Canada (1.5%)
5.	Yenisei–Angara–Selenge–Ider	5,539	3,445	25,80,000	18,050	Kara sea	Russia (97%), Mongolia (2.9%)
6.	Yellow River	5,464	3,395	745,000	2,571	Bohai sea	China
7.	Ob–Irtysh	5,410	3,364	29,90,000	12,475	Gulf of ob	Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia
8.	Río de la Plata–Paraná–Rio Grande	4,880	3,030	25,82,672	22,000	Río de la Plata	Brazil (46.7%), Argentina (27.7%), Paraguay (13.5%), Bolivia (8.3%), Uruguay (3.8%)
9.	Congo–Chambeshi	4,700	2,922	36,80,000	41,800	Atlantic ocean	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Angola, Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Cameroon, Zambia, Burundi, Rwanda
10.	Amur–Argun–Kherlen	4,444	2,763	18,55,000	11,400	Sea of Okhotsk	Russia, China, Mongolia

 

Important Rivers of the World – Facts

• The Congo River (former name – Zaire river) crosses the Equator twice.
• The river Limpopo crosses the Tropic of Capricorn twice.
• The river River Hwang He or the Yellow River is known as China’s sorrow.
• The river Nile begins south of the Equator, crosses the Tropic of Cancer and then empties into the sea.
• The river Amazon throughout its entire length does not have any bridges across it.
• Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar are the countries which do not have any rivers flowing through them.
• River Danube flows through 4 capital cities, Belgrade (Serbia),  Budapest (Hungary), Bratislava (Slovakia) and Vienna (Austria). Also, it flows through ten countries namely Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia,  Slovakia and Ukraine.